


Sharpens Me Like a Knife

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Break Up, Family Drama, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Force Training, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren Backstory, M/M, Nightmares, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Seduction to the Dark Side, Sharing a Bed, Teen Romance, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-14 21:56:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13016964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Ben Organa-Solo never meant to sabotage his own life. Sometimes these things just happen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has sat barely started and untouched in my WIP folder for a year and a half but then December rolled around and I realized I needed to finish it before canon massacred my idea, and, you know, deadlines (even when they're self-imposed!) always make me actually finish things! I hope this will still be enjoyable to people in the wake of whatever TLJ might give us. This story is complete and I'll be posting it in three parts. Title from Fall Out Boy. Thanks to my RL friend for reading through about 17k of it and for helpful suggestions, as well as to everyone in the knightpilot discord who listened to me moan and were lovely and encouraging.

Poe always has his eyes on the sky, even when his feet are on the ground.

Ben thinks he should have known they were doomed from the start.

-

Ben is fourteen the first time he meets Poe.

Well, technically he’s thirteen, but his birthday is in a standard month so he figures that’s close enough. He is on Corellia, the current seat of the Senate, and he knows his parents are looking to get him out of the way. His dad is light years away, training pilots, or, as his mom puts it, avoiding his emotions. His father wasn’t one for talking about where he came from but everyone knew he was Corellian.

No Solos left on Corellia, apparently, or at least none that wanted to see Han – or that Han wanted to see.

And his mother, well, she has the Senate. She is perpetually busy. Uncle Chewie is with his family on Kashyyyk. Not even Uncle Luke is around, off on some quest that has to do with Uncle Lando.

That leaves Ben, and no one knows what to do with him. Ben tries to remind them that he’s fourteen – _close enough_ – and can take care of himself, but they all seem to think he’ll get into trouble.

That’s where Poe comes in.

Poe Dameron is a family friend, apparently, or at least, his parents are. He’s a few years older than Ben, which Ben’s parents seem to think makes him responsible or something. It’s like they think Ben needs a sitter, which is ridiculous, he isn’t a baby, he can use the _Force –_

“So you’re Ben, huh?”

Ben blinks over at the guy suddenly standing across from him, outside the Senate building. “Um. Yeah?”

The guy holds his hand out for Ben to shake. “I’m Poe. Your mom told me I’d find you out here.”

Poe has black wavy hair and an easy smile, and he wears a leather jacket that’s just too big for him, hanging a bit loose on his lean frame, as though he hasn’t quite grown into it yet. Ben has this weird feeling in his stomach when he looks at him, this uncomfortable gnawing feeling, like nerves, like his insides are knotting up, and his palms feel strangely sweaty.

He wipes them on the back of his pants, hopefully inconspicuously, before shaking Poe’s hand. “I don’t know why she thinks I need someone to watch me.”

“Maybe she just thinks you’d like a friend,” Poe offers.

Ben eyes him suspiciously, wondering if his mom told Poe to say that. Poe seems genuine, though, and he’s waiting like he’s expecting Ben to say something.

“I have friends,” Ben blurts out, because he is an idiot. He can feel his skin flush.

It isn’t true, anyway. Ben is terrible at making friends, and most of the kids he knows are stuck-up senators’ kids and Ben wouldn’t want to hang out with them even if they didn’t say he was weird.

Ben doesn’t care that they think that. He doesn’t.

“Maybe I can be one more, then?” Poe says, still smiling.

His smile makes that knotted feeling intensify. Ben wants him to stop.

“There’s a good sweets shop down that way,” Ben says, pointing.

“Neat,” Poe says, and lets Ben show him the way.

-

In the evening Ben has a late dinner with his mother in their apartment. He can admit he probably ate too many sweets but mostly he’s still thinking about Poe’s stupid smile. He smiles way too much.

“Did you have a good time with Poe?” his mother asks him from across the table, spooning noodles onto her plate. She is still dressed in her fine Senate clothes but wisps of her hair are falling out of her braids to hang loose around her face. She looks tired.

Ben pushes his food around with his fork. “I guess.”

“He’s a nice boy. I think it will be good for you to spend some time with him.”

“Maybe you should see if he wants to be your son instead.”

His mother’s lips purse in that way she has that means she is disappointed with Ben’s foolishness. “Poe’s mother was a friend of mine. She died almost ten years ago.”

The back of Ben’s neck feels hot. Stupid.

He has a sudden flash of memory, an unplanned trip to Bespin to stay with Uncle Lando while his parents went to Yavin 4; he must have been about five. A funeral. He hadn’t understood. Someone had died.

Shara Bey. Poe’s mother.

His mother sighs. “Ben. Please just give him a chance. I know this isn’t the easiest time for you, and this isn’t the best environment for you. Is it so bad that you might make a friend?”

“I don’t need you to shove people at me, Mom.”

Now she raises an eyebrow. “So you won’t like him to spite me?”

Ben’s mother has a way of prodding him to realize that he is being childish when he only ever wants her to see that he isn’t a kid anymore. “I guess he seems okay.”

She reaches across the table to squeeze his wrist. “I really do think you’ll like each other. Please be nice to him. For me.”

“Yeah,” Ben mutters, and pretends he doesn’t even notice his mother’s tired, relieved smile.

-

Ben sees Poe a few times a week. They hang out in the shops and take walks through the city center; they sit in a park not far from the senate building. Poe has a speeder on loan for his time in Corellia and sometimes he lets Ben take control of it, laughing like he doesn’t know that Ben is showing off a little.

Flying feels like the only thing Ben is good at, most of the time. That and the Force, but mostly he isn’t supposed to use the Force without Uncle Luke around. Uncle Luke and Ben’s mother always have that look, like they’re talking in each others’ heads, and like they don’t know that Ben can hear them, that he knows they think he’s got too much power for his own good, that it’s dangerous, that _he_ could be dangerous if he isn’t trained properly, if he doesn’t control it.

They’re afraid of him.

But Ben can’t stop using the Force just because Uncle Luke isn’t here. He doesn’t know how.

Flying is safer. Everyone is glad Ben can fly, especially his dad. Ben thinks it’s the only way he hasn’t disappointed him.

Poe is great at flying. He says he’s going to be a pilot, just like his mother. She flew A-wings for the Rebellion and Poe idolizes her.

Ben doesn’t know how it feels when your mother is dead. He’s wished sometimes that his father were dead but he thinks that’s probably different.

Poe is sixteen. He’s basically an adult, and Ben’s mother treats him that way. When they’re flying, it’s the only time Ben doesn’t feel like a silly kid next to him.

“Seriously, you should be the one on his way to the Naval Academy,” Poe says when Ben is racing outside the city, executing tight turns that make Poe breathless with laughter. “You were born to be a pilot.”

“I’m going to be a Jedi, like my uncle.”

“Do you want to be a Jedi?”

“I… I never thought about it, I guess.” Why wouldn’t he be a Jedi? Ben’s powers are all anybody ever talks about.

“Well, I just think you should be able to be whatever you want to be. And you obviously love flying.”

“Uncle Luke loves flying, and he’s a Jedi.”

“You don’t have to be exactly like your Uncle Luke. If you don’t want to be.” When Ben darts a glance at him, he sees that Poe’s brown eyes are warm with concern. “You shouldn’t be exactly like him, anyway. You should be yourself.”

“Thought my mom asked you to keep me out of trouble, not give me life advice.”

“The advice is just a bonus,” Poe says, and Ben hates his wide, cheerful smile so, so much.

-

Ben’s mother is so busy that he frequently never even sees her. He keeps dinner for her and then falls asleep on the couch waiting, only to blink blearily when she strokes her hand through his hair and apologizes; she is always apologizing. She will break plans to comm and say she has to do some research, or reschedule trips and meals because she has sudden meetings only to then reschedule what’s already been rescheduled.

But Ben isn’t a kid anymore so he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what his mother does.

Sometimes it’s good, because it means when Ben wakes screaming with nightmares, his fear doesn’t bleed through into his mother’s head because she is halfway across the city and too busy to notice.

(Sometimes she notices anyway and comes rushing in, but Ben pretends to be sleeping because it isn’t like she can help him and he hates seeing that look on her face, the look that means she doesn’t know what’s wrong.)

He comes in one day to see that she’s actually in the apartment, hurriedly eating a flatbread while Ben’s father’s face is on the viewscreen. “Ben! Perfect! It’s your father, come say hello, I’ve got to use the fresher before my meeting.”

So Ben reluctantly shuffles over. “Hey.”

“Hi, Ben,” Han says, and rubs the back of his neck. “You doing okay?”

“Fine.”

“Your mother says you’ve made friends with the Dameron boy.”

“She made me,” Ben says, but then thinks maybe that isn’t fair to Poe. “He’s okay, I guess.”

“He’s a good kid. I liked his parents.” Han pauses awkwardly, clearly grasping for conversation. “Have you… had any problems? Sleeping all right?”

“Same as always.” Meaning, not great.

“Does your mother--”

Even the start of the sentence stings and Ben can’t let him finish. Nothing ever changes. “Yeah, push me off on her, just like you always do. For a second there I almost thought you actually cared.”

Han winces. “This Force stuff, I don’t understand it. She’s better at this than I am, I--”

“Yeah, okay, great talk,” Ben says, and disconnects.

His mother comes back into the room. “He’s gone?”

“He had to go,” Ben says, and goes into his room and closes the door.

-

Poe is open and unguarded in a way that Ben finds mildly troubling.

He acts like he doesn’t care what people think of him and like he has nothing at all to hide. He is free with his emotions, smiling and laughing generously, and he always says what he means.

Ben knows, because Poe is terrible at shielding.

Anyone who spends any time with Ben learns to shield their thoughts. Some are better at it than others, but everyone tries.

Poe’s thoughts constantly seep into Ben’s head, a jumble of feelings.

It should be horrible. Ben _hates_ the chaos of other minds and the way half the time he isn’t even sure what’s his and what’s someone else’s. Poe, though, is different, somehow.

His mind is loud, maybe louder than most, even, but Ben finds he isn’t bothered.

The fact that he isn’t bothered irritates him.

Poe smiles at him, and in his head is only cheer and affection, and Ben waits for there to be a trick but there never is.

Poe’s mind feels comforting and that’s just so… _irritating._ Poe is only even around because Ben’s mother asked him to be. They wouldn’t even be friends if not for that, and maybe they’re not even real friends anyway.

So Ben doesn’t want anything about this to feel comforting.

But he misses Poe when they don’t hang out for a few days and, even more troubling, being around Poe quiets the extraneous noise around Ben. It quiets the noise in Ben’s own head, too, and Ben doesn’t understand why.

-

There is a bench by a tree in the middle of the city where Ben goes to be alone. It’s just secluded enough that he isn’t bothered by the bustle of beings going through their day but it’s close enough that his mother doesn’t make a fuss over him being there.

As if it even matters where he goes. His mother barely notices because she’s so rarely around.

Ben doesn’t mean to take Poe there, but Poe finds him there one afternoon, and after that it starts to be where they meet up most days. Sometimes they take Poe’s speeder for aimless flights and sometimes they go walking, just through the city or visiting the shops, and sometimes they just stay at Ben’s bench and talk.

Poe talks about what he wants to do, his dreams of being in the New Republic Navy. He talks about his mother, in a soft voice filled with affection. Ben thinks that it must be nice to be so certain, to know what your place is and what you want.

Poe talks a lot, and he talks to fill the quiet so that Ben doesn’t have to, but he also knows how to prompt and how to get Ben to say things he’s never told anyone. Ben will start talking about his training with Uncle Luke and then he’ll realize he’s been going on for ten minutes and Poe is still listening raptly, making interjections that make Ben think he actually does care what Ben has to say. Ben’s told Poe about his family, about his fears and anxieties, about how even though he can use the Force like his mother and his uncle and he can fly like his father, he still feels like he doesn’t belong, like he’s a disappointment.

He doesn’t tell Poe about the nightmares, or the darkness, but he says a lot of things he isn’t comfortable telling anyone else at all. Ben doesn’t know why Poe makes him feel like he can.

He thinks of Uncle Lando saying that he’s got a trustworthy face, and how Ben’s mother had rolled her eyes and Ben’s father had snorted into his drink. Ben thinks that maybe Poe actually does have a trustworthy face.

Then Ben thinks that that’s an awfully silly thing to actually believe and resolves to forget it.

-

Mostly Ben can mute the thoughts seeping in around him. He’s better at it now than he was, anyway, when he used to scream and claw at his head because he couldn’t understand _why,_ why were there so many voices, where were they coming from, who were these people, make it stop make it stop make it _stop –_

Now it’s like a constant hum of noise, annoying but ignorable. Usually. Certain minds are worse than others. Powerful emotions are always bad.

Today they accidentally come upon a funeral procession and Ben feels like he’s dying.

A woman weeping, _my boy, my boy, my baby,_ and Ben feels his chest constrict; the pain in his head makes him stagger and he clutches his head. “No,” he moans, all the voices, so many voices, so much _pain –_

He hardly notices as Poe loops his arm around Ben’s waist and guides him away, speaking in a low voice, words that don’t register.

They’re standing beneath a tree and Ben doesn’t know how he got here; he is looking up into Poe’s face while Poe rubs his thumbs over Ben’s cheeks and speaks to him, _Ben, it’s okay, focus on me, focus on my voice, you’re okay,_ and Ben realizes that he _is_ okay.

The pain has receded and now there is nothing but Poe’s care and worry and concern, strangely soothing.

Embarrassed, Ben pushes away. He cards his hand through his hair and makes himself breathe like Uncle Luke taught him to.

“What was that?” Poe asks behind him.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? I was afraid you were going to collapse; I nearly contacted your mother.”

Ben spins around. “Don’t ever do that!”

“Then tell me what’s going on!”

Ben drops down into the dirt and sighs. Poe has taken them to Ben’s bench, his nearly private little hideaway. “I can just… hear them. Other minds. They were in too much pain for me to shut them out.”

He can still hear the woman weeping. He can still feel her.

Poe’s mouth drops open and then he plops down right in front of Ben. “The Force works like that? Like… like mind stuff? I mean, I knew you could make people do things, and believe things, but I didn’t…”

“I’m not sure it’s supposed to. I can tell my uncle doesn’t understand. He can share thoughts with my mother, but they always thought that was because they were twins. They’re connected. It doesn’t work with anyone else.”

Poe touches Ben’s shin. “It’s always like that? For you?”

Ben shrugs. “I got better at shielding. My family guards themselves from me. Mostly I’m okay, just… it’s like constantly having the holonews on in the background.”

“Didn’t seem like that just now.”

“They were too emotional.”

“It sounds awful.”

“Don’t pity me,” Ben says, disgusted, getting up again. He looks away, towards the street. So many lifeforms. So many minds.

“I don’t do pity,” Poe says. “Life is too short to waste on something no one wants.”

Startled, Ben glances down at him. “What?”

Poe rises to his feet. “You can feel my mind, too, can’t you?”

Ben hesitates, then he nods.

Poe grabs Ben’s hand. “Has it ever felt to you like I’m here because I don’t want to be, or because I feel sorry for you?”

His mind is so cluttered and loud. Ben searches for Poe’s anger, now that he knows what Ben can do, but he finds none.

And he finds no pity.

Only concern.

“No,” Ben says, and doesn’t know how that makes him feel.

Sometimes he thinks that strangers’ emotions are clearer than his own.

-

“That’s so cool,” Poe says, as Ben spins a rock in slow, lazy circles.

The rock clatters to the ground. “That wasn’t anything,” Ben says, but his ears are pinking.

“We’ve got a tree in front of our house on Yavin Four, it’s from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, you know, before the purge. I used to play by it and hope I’d get special powers or something.” Poe shrugs. “Didn’t really work.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Ben says, looking him up and down.

“Nah, I know. Would’ve been fun, though.” He catches himself. “I mean, some of it. I’m not trying to--”

“I know what you mean.” Eager to change the subject, Ben says, “You want to come over? My mom’s out.”

“Sure,” Poe agrees, and they walk to Ben’s apartment. It’s a nice day, warm and sunny. Corellia is generally nice, except for when it’s not - and when it’s not, it’s _really_ not. The first week Ben was here it rained straight through until the streets were flooded and the ground soggy.

He takes Poe up; their rooms are at the top of the building. Ben’s favorite thing is the view; he likes to sit on the balcony outside his bedroom and look down at the world below. He feels self-conscious watching Poe look around, like maybe Poe expected something different. Poe is just going around in a slow circle, quiet, taking in the sitting room and the large windows.

“It isn’t as nice as the other places we’ve stayed,” Ben says, shrugging. “It’s small.”

He realizes he’s said something wrong by the expression on Poe’s face but he doesn’t have time to examine it; his mother comes home.

Her lips part in surprise when she sees Poe but her eyes brighten immediately. “Poe! I’m glad to see you.”

“Good afternoon, Your Highness,” Poe says, ducking his head a little.

Ben’s mother is smiling, so charmed. Everyone is charmed by Poe; it’s horribly annoying. “If it takes until I’m old and gray I’ll get you to call me Leia, Poe Dameron.”

“You can try, ma’am,” Poe says, and Ben’s mother laughs.

“Will you stay to eat? I thought I’d have a late lunch with Ben; he didn’t answer his comlink so I came over.” Her gaze is disapproving when it alights on Ben.

He shrugs. “It’s rude to answer when I have a guest.”

“Oh, now you choose to listen to what I say.”

“I’d love to eat,” Poe interrupts, clearly trying to avoid an argument. “If it’s no trouble.”

“You’re never trouble, Poe,” Ben’s mother assures him.

Ben scowls. Of course the implication is that he _is._

But Poe is ruffling the hair on the back of Ben’s head and he’s so annoying, and he’s smiling that stupid, stupid smile, and Ben hates it, and he hates Poe, and his insides are squirming and he feels sorry when Poe moves away.

It is the best meal Ben has had with his mother in ages.

-

“I think this is what they call ironic,” Ben says, dropping off the fence down onto the grass beside Poe. “You were supposed to be a good influence on me, not encourage me to commit crimes.”

Poe smiles slyly and pulls Ben along with him. “It’s such a small crime, though. Harmless.”

“Yeah, breaking and entering, trespassing…”

“It’ll be fun,” Poe insists, and Ben can’t deny the rush he already feels, doing something exciting that he isn’t supposed to.

He looks around for the circling cam droids because that’s the last thing he needs: his mother finding out because he’s been arrested, or because his face ends up on the holonews. _Senator’s son breaks into Corellian animal park._

“Are you sure there’s even anything in here?” Ben asks as they walk. All he sees is the darkened grounds.

“Maybe they’re all sleeping.”

“Well, that’s kind of anti-climactic.” He supposes it’s still nice, though, to have the entire place to themselves, just him and Poe.

“It’s nicer at night though, don’t you think? No people.”

It strikes Ben as an odd thing for Poe to say; Poe loves people. Then he thinks maybe Poe is happy to spend time with only him, and his insides seem to knot up for a second before Ben reminds himself that he’s probably only reading into things.

“I like the quiet,” Ben says, and Poe squeezes his arm briefly.

“I figured you’d appreciate it,” he says. “No crowds of loud minds. Just mine.”

“Yours is okay,” Ben says without thinking, and Poe looks startled and pleased.

They come upon a statue in a courtyard, vines growing around the base. It’s a pilot posed heroically but Ben doesn’t know enough about Corellian history to know who it is, and he doesn’t care enough to read the plaque. A snake slithers away as they approach.

“What exactly can you do with all those Force powers?” Poe asks.

Ben shrugs. “Dunno. A lot.” Uncle Luke says he’s never seen raw natural power like Ben’s before, but then, what other Force-sensitive kids has Uncle Luke even seen? Ben can feel the strength coursing through him when he uses the Force but he doesn’t really know how it’s supposed to feel. He just… is. He doesn’t know how else to be.

“Could you lift that statue?”

“Sure, I guess. That’s not hard.”

“Gonna prove it?” Poe teases.

Ben rolls his eyes. “Why? It’s dumb. I’ll get in trouble if anyone sees.”

“There’s no one here, and no cameras.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Show me what you got,” Poe says, all charm and challenge, and Ben tries to glare but isn’t sure he manages it.

He focuses on the statue, raising his hand, and it’s easy, really. Ben’s been levitating things since he was tiny and, in this aspect at least, size really doesn’t matter. He’s got it ten feet off the ground and spinning in loops without hardly trying, and Poe’s cheering like Ben’s done something amazing.

It’s a mistake to look over at Poe, because his face is horribly distracting, and Ben loses focus.

“Kriff!” Ben swears, and the statue falls before he can catch it. It hits the ground with a tremendous crunching sound, and a severed arm rolls over towards Poe.

Poe looks at the arm lying by his boots. “I guess we just added property destruction and vandalism to that list of crimes, huh?”

Ben grabs his wrist and they make a run for it as an alarm blares in the distance.

-

“I’m sorry, Ben,” his mother says, late one night, the sky darkened and the moon out. She’s just come from the Senate building and she is beginning to look undone, here in their apartment where there are no cam droids hovering. “He’s going to be a bit longer than he thought.”

“It’s fine,” Ben mutters. Wasn’t like he had expected his father to actually make the visit he’d promised.

“It’s complicated,” she tries. “It will be better, once we’re off Corellia.”

“Sure,” Ben says, and goes into his bedroom and closes the door.

It was always complicated. Ben doesn’t know why he keeps being disappointed.

 _Your father loves you,_ his mother sends him, the words echoing in his head.

Ben supposes that’s true. He remembers once, when he was small, waking from a nightmare, crying. Not the bad nightmares, just a normal one. He remembers his father holding him, telling stories. He remembers falling asleep like that.

But he’s too old for that now, and his father spends more time with his racers than he does with Ben.

Maybe Poe is right. Maybe he should be a pilot. Maybe his father would love him better.

 _It isn’t you,_ his mother says, and Ben shuts her out.

On a whim, he types out a message to Poe.

_Want to hang out?_

Ben waits for the reply nervously, half-expecting to get none.

But it only takes a moment. _Okay. Meet me at our bench?_

That simple, stupid phrase shouldn’t make a shiver thrill down Ben’s spine, but it does. He taps out an affirmative and hurries through the apartment, yelling to his mother, “I’m going out to meet Poe!”

Before he can leave she confronts him. “You’re what? It’s too late to be heading out now.”

“I thought you wanted me to be with Poe so he’d keep me out of trouble, or do you not trust him anymore? Or you don’t want me to have friends?”

She frowns, eyebrows knitting together. “If you continue to act childishly then I will continue to treat you like a child.”

Ben feels a flush of shamed anger. “I just want to get out of the apartment. To breathe.”

His mother hesitates. “You’ll be with Poe?”

He rolls his eyes. “Every second.”

“All right, then. If something happens, you comm me. Promise?”

“I promise,” Ben says, ducking out the door.

She calls, “And not too late!”

Ben runs all the way to their bench - it’s no longer Ben’s bench, not ever, it’s theirs, Poe said so - and beats Poe by a good five minutes and has to wait. Which is probably for the best; this way Poe won’t find him sweaty and breathless.

By the time Poe arrives Ben is on the bench, breathing evenly again, hopefully sans flushed cheeks. He hates that his face shows everything.

Poe slides in next to him and squeezes his shoulder. “Hey,” he says, concern evident. “I got the impression something’s bothering you.”

“All I said was I wanted to hang out.”

“Yeah, but…” Poe shrugs. “Seemed urgent. And you never ask to meet up this late. Are you okay?”

Ben’s chest feels tight, like he’s run too fast again. It seems weird that he was ever upset that he was supposed to spend time with Poe. He isn’t sure that he’s ever had a friend before, a real friend, his own age, who cares, who wants to be with him.

“Do you miss your dad?” Ben asks.

“Of course. But he comms all the time, like, every day. He’s a dork.”

Ben thinks that it’s been almost a week since the last time he was face-to-face with his father, if holos even count as face-to-face. Their conversation had been filled with gaps as they tried to figure out what to say to each other. He purposely missed the last comm, and he thinks probably his dad made sure Ben missed the one where he said he wasn’t coming.

He can sense the moment Poe realizes why Ben is asking; it bleeds through from his loud, loud mind into Ben’s.

“Sometimes…” Poe hesitates. “Sometimes it’s hard for people to say what they mean, or show how they feel.”

“It’s complicated,” Ben says, and hears it in his mother’s voice.

“I guess knowing that doesn’t make it any better.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Ben says, pulling at the seam of his pants. There’s a thread coming loose.

“Okay,” Poe says, and he scoots a little closer until his shoulder bumps up against Ben’s. “I’ve been wondering. Should I really call you ‘Your Highness’ or something? Like, aren’t you technically a prince?”

Ben rolls his eyes, but he feels a little bit better already.

-

The summer ends and Poe goes back to Yavin 4.

It was the best summer of Ben’s life.

-

In school, Ben is still the weird one. He eats lunch in a corner alone and doesn’t wish that Poe was there.

Uncle Luke comes to supplement his schoolwork with Jedi lessons. That’s at least better; Ben would rather learn lightsaber forms than galactic history, to be honest. The meditation and spirituality stuff is less compelling but if he wants to learn to master his abilities, Uncle Luke insists on it.

The meditation is also supposed to calm his mind and prevent the nightmares, the darkness, but the truth is, Ben is crap at it.

And the truth is, when Ben tries on his own, without Uncle Luke, the more he quiets his mind, the easier he can hear the dark thoughts.

He doesn’t say that to Uncle Luke.

-

Uncle Luke says his saber is to defend. He says that Jedi are meant to uphold the balance, to protect those who need it.

Ben holds his lightsaber and feels strong. He feels powerful.

He feels a pull to use it, he feels a call, he feels a tendril of something deep in his mind reaching out to him.

He doesn’t tell Uncle Luke that, either.

-

Poe comms him frequently and Ben hardly knows what to do with all these feelings, these feelings he knows are his own, that Poe thinks well enough of him to want to talk to him even though they’re so far apart, to keep their friendship that started so unceremoniously.

His smile is still stupid, though, and it still makes Ben’s heart race.

He is telling Poe goodbye one evening when someone knocks; the nervous pace of the rapping tells Ben it’s his father.

Han Solo’s been on Corellia for a standard week. Ben thinks he probably won’t stay much longer; his shields are clumsy and Ben can feel how uncomfortable his father is here. He stays for Ben’s mother, and maybe for Ben, but soon enough he’ll find an excuse, something with his pilots, or maybe he’ll go visit Uncle Chewie on Kashyyyk.

Poe must notice the distraction on Ben’s face as he looks to the door; he asks if he’s okay. Poe’s concern is irritating, but maybe not quite as irritating as the fact that Ben kind of likes it.

“Fine,” Ben mumbles. “I’ll talk to you later,” he says, and shuts off the holo transmission.

When Han comes in, he stands awkwardly framed just inside the doorway. He nods at the datapad. “The Dameron kid?”

“I don’t have anyone else to talk to, do I?”

“There’s always me,” Han says, like half a suggestion and half a weak joke.

Ben chooses not to respond.

Han clear his throat. “So I was thinking, maybe we could, I don’t know do something together.” When Ben fails to speak, Han continues, “Uh, the two of us? Might be nice. Since we haven’t spent much time together. You know. If you want.”

“I’m busy. I’ve got school.”

“Yeah. Right. Of course. I mean, it was just an idea.”

The silence stretches painfully.

Han says, “We could go up in the _Falcon?_ You used to like that.”

The comment stings but Ben can’t entirely figure out why. “Yeah. Maybe. If I have time.”

“I’ll let you fly her a bit.”

Surprised, Ben’s eyes fly to his father. He seems almost taken aback to have said it but there’s a strange sort of guarded hopefulness emanating from his mind.

“You mean it?”

Shrugging, Han says, “Sure. Just a little. With supervision, of course.” He hesitates. “You’re a good pilot, Ben.”

It’s the only common ground they have. Bitterness is welling up but Ben finds himself swayed by the promise of flying the _Millennium Falcon;_ as much as he wants to dismiss the ship as a piece of old junk his father won’t let go of, he knows that nothing else flies quite like her.

“Okay,” Ben says, and ignores the palpable relief he can feel from his father.

-

Flying doesn’t fix anything but there is a moment, when Ben has his hand on the flight stick, whooping in excitement as he executes a perfect turn while his father praises him, that Ben thinks he will hold onto.

He wishes it was always like this, that he was normal, that his father loved him openly and easily, and there was nothing in his head but a love of flying.


	2. Chapter 2

The summer Ben turns fifteen, he spends on Yavin 4 with Poe.

It was his mother’s idea.

“You were so happy when Poe was around,” she says. “I know your father and I are busy and you get so bored here on Corellia. Wouldn’t you like to visit Poe? Kes has already said you’re welcome.”

Ben agrees a bit sullenly. Inside he feels like his stomach is doing loops.

-

Poe picks him up at the spaceport on Yavin 4, leaning up against a speeder bike. He grins and waves, and Ben absolutely doesn’t forget how to breathe for a second.

He had forgotten how stupidly handsome Poe is in person, all his cheer and charm that doesn’t quite translate with just a holo. It’s a bit overwhelming face-to-face, when he’s looking at you the way he does, like there is no one more important in the entire galaxy.

Poe hugs him, and Ben tries not to turn stiff and awkward but he also doesn’t want to indulge the urge to cling as tightly as he wants. Poe smells so good and his soft hair tickles Ben’s cheek when he leans in.

“You’ve gotten taller,” Poe says, laughing. “You look great.”

“You, too,” Ben mumbles, hating himself and hating the flush that goes up the back of his neck.

But Poe only grins at him and says, “I brought my bike; hope you won’t mind sharing. Dad’s got a speeder but this is faster.” He straps Ben’s bag to the back.

“I don’t mind,” Ben says, and hopes he doesn’t come off as eager when he climbs on behind Poe, putting his arms around Poe’s waist to hang on.

“Here we go,” Poe says, and kicks the bike into gear.

They zoom through the city, and then Poe pushes the bike impossibly faster as they reach the outskirts, heading into the jungle. He swerves between trees and the air rushes through Ben’s hair; Ben feels light and exhilarated and Poe’s body is so, so warm.

Poe and his father live on a ranch that is partially secluded, and the first thing Ben sees is what he knows must be the Force tree Poe told him about. It’s huge and seems to faintly glow, like nothing Ben has ever seen before. He can sense it, not like he can sense the lifeforce in other plants, but almost like it’s truly alive in the way that sentient beings are.

Poe parks the speeder bike in a little garage and when they step outside, his father is there to greet them.

Kes Dameron has dark eyes and black hair that is just beginning to gray; his smile reminds Ben of Poe, though it’s just a bit less aggravatingly captivating. “Ben,” he says, warm and welcoming. “The last time I saw you, you were a tiny bundle in your mother’s arms.”

Ben flushes. “I don’t remember.”

Kes laughs. “I wouldn’t think you would. I’m glad you decided to come; Poe hasn’t stopped talking about you since he came back from Corellia.”

“Dad,” Poe says, his cheeks flushing to match Ben’s.

“Thank you for having me,” Ben says, thinking that his mother would approve. He is trying not to imagine Poe talking about him.

“It’s a long trip; I bet you’re starved. Come in, let me make you something.” Kes settles his hand on Ben’s back, gently and unselfconsciously handsy, just like Poe.

Ben lets himself be led.

-

The house is small and functional, only a few rooms spread over a single floor with a basement for storage. Poe gives Ben a tour but it takes hardly any time at all; he brings Ben to his bedroom and shows him a drawer he’s emptied out for Ben’s clothes.

Ben isn’t sure what he expected but Poe’s bedroom seems right. It’s clean but cluttered, flimsies and models scattered on the desk, what Ben imagines are yesterday’s clothes left on the foot of his bed and that leather jacket he wore all the time in Corellia hanging over the back of his chair. Family holos on the desk and beside the bed, posters of X-wings and old Rebellion propaganda on the walls.

Poe rubs his hand through his hair, like he’s nervous. “I know you’re used to better, but I--”

“It’s great,” Ben interrupts. He is used to better, frankly, but he’s getting to spend an entire summer with Poe so he thinks he’s making out pretty well regardless.

“Okay,” Poe says, sounding oddly uncertain. “Come on, let’s see what my dad’s up to. He’s actually a great cook.”

-

In the evening Poe sets up a cot in his bedroom to sleep on; he refuses to let Ben take it. “No, the bed is yours. You’re my guest, and it’s the best I can offer.”

“You can’t sleep on that all summer,” Ben says, horrified.

“Well, I know you aren’t gonna, so yeah, I can. I’m not as spoiled as you,” Poe teases, but it feels joking and fond rather than mean.

Ben wants to say they can share the bed, but he knows that would be wrong. They’re too old to share. It would be weird.

So he says, “If it’s the best you’ve got, I guess it’s okay.”

Poe gives him that wide, wide smile, and Ben hates it.

-

The heat on Yavin is wet and stifling, and Ben isn’t sure he’ll ever be used to it. There is always work to be done, maintenance and caring for the grove and garden, but the heat makes Ben lethargic. He thinks he’s drowning in his own sweat.

Poe laughs at him when he lies on his back and moans about it, but he also takes Ben down to a little pool with a waterfall, so they can go swimming in the cool water.

It does get a little better, as the days pass, but not much.

No one asks Ben to help but when Poe is mending security systems or picking koyo melons, Ben feels stupid just sitting by and watching, or hiding in the house. So he helps as much as he can. It makes Poe smile at him, which in turn makes Ben’s stomach flip.

Kes and Poe are easily, casually, thoughtlessly affectionate and it makes Ben painfully jealous. He thinks it must be nice, to have a parent who understands you, who doesn’t resent you for what you can’t change. He thinks it must be nice to be normal.

Kes tells stories when they’re all in the orchard together, stories from the war, the Rebellion. He used to be a Pathfinder, Ben knows from Poe, serving under General Han Solo.

General. Seems weird. Ben’s father can hardly find his way out of the _Falcon;_ how could he ever have led soldiers?

But Kes’ stories are about someone brave and resourceful, someone whose soldiers would’ve followed him anywhere. Ben knows he is supposed to feel pride but mostly he wonders why it’s easier for a man like Kes to love Han Solo than it is for his own son.

If Han had meant so much to those he served with, then why does Ben only feel disappointment?

-

Ben wakes up screaming.

There is a sound of shattering glass and someone is leaning over him; he pushes out with his mind and hears a thud and a grunt as something hits the wall. Wild-eyed, breath heaving, he turns and looks.

No. Oh, kriff, he’s… he’s on Yavin, he’s in Poe’s bed, in Poe’s bedroom, and Poe is slumped on the floor, rubbing his head. In the dim light, he can see a trickle of blood on Poe’s face.

“Poe!” Ben says.

“Shit,” Poe says.

The door slides open and Kes runs in, looking rumpled and scared. “What’s wrong? Boys? Poe?” He crouches down on the floor before Poe, hands immediately going to Poe’s face. “Poe! What the hell happened? Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing,” Poe says, and Ben feels shame welling up.

He did that. Poe was trying to help him, and he did that. He hurt him.

“It’s not nothing, you’re bleeding, and I heard screaming, and--”

“Dad,” Poe says, pushing Kes away. “I’m fine. Ben had a nightmare. Let me fix it, okay?”

Kes looks at Poe, and then at Ben. “Hell of a nightmare.”

Ben can’t look anyone in the face. There is glass on the floor where Ben broke the light coverings. He hadn’t meant to do that, either.

“Let me clean you up,” Kes says, but there is a shuffling noise as Poe stands up.

“I’ll take care of it. In a minute. It’s not bad, Dad. Go back to sleep.”

Kes stands, too, obviously torn. “I can--”

“Dad, it’s okay. Please.”

Kes hesitates in the doorway before finally nodding. He says, “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

The door closes behind him.

“Are you all right?” Poe asks.

“Am I all right? You’re bleeding! I hurt you!”

“You didn’t mean to. I shouldn’t have startled you.”

“I didn’t…” Ben chokes on the words and falls silent.

Poe goes over to his desk, carefully avoiding the broken glass, and takes a few seconds to wipe up the blood, covering the wound up with a small bandage. Ben stares down at his knees.

“Is it always like that?” Poe asks quietly.

“Worse, sometimes,” Ben admits. There doesn’t seem to be a point to lying, and Poe makes Ben feel like he can tell him anything.

“I didn’t know. I had no idea it was that bad.” Poe creeps up onto the bed and sits beside Ben for a while, the silence oddly loud, somehow.

Then Poe moves in like he’s going to hold Ben but he doesn’t quite touch. He says, “Is this okay?”

Ben nods.

So Poe holds him, and it should be awkward but instead Ben feels warm and safe and protected. He presses into him, clinging as much as he wants, and Poe shifts them over onto their sides on the bed.

Eventually Ben drifts off to sleep like that, secure in Poe’s embrace, and he has no more nightmares that night.

-

After that they sleep together in Poe’s bed every night.

Poe asks him, “Does it help? If I’m there?”

So Ben says it does, and Poe always crawls into the bed and lets Ben curl into him. Ben sleeps better than normal and when he does wake shaking and afraid, Poe smoothes his hair back and whispers to him until Ben falls back asleep.

If Kes wonders why they clear up the little cot, he never says anything.

-

They climb the Force tree all the time; there is a thick sturdy branch that’s perfect for lounging. Up here they can see the entire ranch, and the jungle beyond. The koyo melon tree grove and the vast, tangled, wild jungle of Yavin.

“What does it feel like to you?” Poe asks. “The tree?”

“Different,” Ben says. “It’s hard to describe. Everything has its own… signature in the Force, all living things, but this tree feels almost like a sentient being, my sense of it is so strong.”

Poe strokes his hand over the bark. “It’s been here since we came to Yavin, after the war. It used to be smaller than me. It grew faster than me, though.”

“Just a little,” Ben says, and Poe punches his shoulder lightly.

“Hey, so does that mean I have a signature in the Force, too? You can feel me?”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“So what do I feel like to you?” There is a tiny quirk to his mouth that makes Ben think he keeps phrasing it like that on purpose, intentionally laced with innuendo.

He is such a dork.

“Loud,” Ben says, and Poe laughs, and they change the subject.

What Ben doesn’t say is that Poe feels special. He feels like warmth and comfort and safety, even though when Ben is with him it feels almost dangerous. Dangerous because Ben is afraid of what Poe might mean to him, what he thinks Poe means to him already. Poe is all jumbled up with so many confusing emotions in Ben’s head, and then when they are together, just them, when it’s quiet, Ben feels… freer than he ever does anywhere else. His head feels less clouded and that tiny, frightening wisp of unexplainable darkness that hides in the corner of Ben’s head seems to recede until Ben can pretend it isn’t even there, that he’s normal.

-

“Your father and I thought it might be nice to visit for your birthday,” Ben’s mother says, her hologram gently flickering with the poor connection.

“Dad, too?” Ben says in surprise.

“Yes, Dad, too.”

“I guess. If you want. I figured you’d be busy.”

“Ben, we love you. Don’t be childish; you know you’re more important than the Senate.”

_Am I?_ Ben thinks. He wonders if there are too many light years between them for his mother to hear.

But her expression looks wounded, so maybe she heard after all. “I’ll see you soon,” she says, and disconnects.

Ben’s head hurts; the models on Poe’s desk are shaking. He tries to calm himself but it gets worse; he knocks an A-wing onto the floor. He thinks about igniting his lightsaber and destroying something; he wants –

Poe knocks on the doorframe as he pokes his head in. “Hey, you done?”

The pain lessens. The models stop wobbling.

“I’m done,” Ben says, and goes outside with Poe.

-

The _Millennium Falcon_ looks huge and ungainly out in front of the Dameron ranch. Ben shifts his weight as the hatch lowers and his parents come out.

His mother comes to him immediately, hugging him, and Ben stands there awkwardly and waits for her to be done. Han ruffles his hair and Ben rolls his eyes.

“This is Poe?” Han exclaims. “Last time I saw you you were just a twig.”

There is a guardedness in Poe’s smile and Ben knows why; his father hasn’t been on Yavin since Poe’s mother died. But he recovers himself and shrugs, saying, “And I remember you having brown hair.”

Han laughs a bit wryly and knocks his fist against Poe’s shoulder. “Yeah, all right, kid, don’t hold back. Kes, your boy’s got your mouth, I see.”

“Hey, don’t blame that on me,” Kes says, and hugs Han heartily.

“Lucky the rest of him resembles Shara; she was the looker.”

Ben watches them with a keen sense of embarrassment, waiting for his mother to comment on Han’s bad taste.

But instead they’re all laughing and Kes is hugging Ben’s mother, saying, “Come on inside, I’ll get you something to drink.”

Poe puts his arm around Ben’s shoulders as they follow the adults and Ben wants to pull away.

But he doesn’t.

-

In the evening after they have dinner they’re all seated outside the house; the evenings aren’t so stiflingly hot. Han disappears momentarily in the direction of the _Falcon_ and when he returns, he shoves a box in Ben’s direction.

Ben blinks at it. It’s a model of a Mon Calamari cruiser, a kid’s toy, like the ones Poe has displayed in his bedroom.

Han rubs the back of his neck. “Birthday gift,” he says gruffly. “I, uh, I know you used to like putting these together. Remember we did the Star Destroyer together?”

“I’m not a kid anymore,” Ben says, holding the model in his hands, realizing that his father doesn’t know him at all. He probably wishes Ben would stay that small, easily managed child forever, the one who used to fall asleep in his arms.

“I know, I just thought--”

“I used to play with these when I was seven!”

Ben and Han stare at each other. Ben’s mother opens her mouth, but whatever she is about to say gets lost when Poe speaks up.

“I have a bunch of those in my room, but I’ve never had a cruiser,” he says. “We can build it together. It’ll be fun.”

Han looks absurdly grateful.

Ben’s knuckles are whitening around the box. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and Poe tugs playfully at a strand of Ben’s hair, smiling at him.

Ben is a little afraid of the things he would do to earn that dumb, irritating smile.

-

Ben’s parents stay a few days, and then they head back to Corellia. Ben doesn’t have a meaningful conversation with either of them the entire time. His mother tries to ask about his nightmares and about whether he’s had any trouble with his powers but Ben brushes her off and she lets him.

He is glad when they leave.

Poe sits by him and silently offers him the opportunity to talk if he wants.

Ben doesn’t.

-

Sometimes they hang out with Poe’s friends. Ben begged off the first few times, not wanting to be the awkward loner and feeling like Poe probably was only asking him along out of a sense of duty, but he could tell that this made Poe feel guilty. Poe started canceling plans to spend time with Ben instead, as if they didn’t spend all day together anyway, so then Ben started coming out with Poe and his friends.

He still feels like an awkward loner but Poe’s friends are okay, he supposes. He doesn’t say much but Poe never pushes him to. Ben likes it best when they’re sitting and Poe casually slings his arm around Ben’s shoulders without comment, like he wants to make sure Ben knows he’s welcome and not forgotten.

They go to a club in the city, and Poe won’t let Ben have anything to drink but he drags him onto the dance floor, where Ben feels stupid and graceless. The only time he can ever get his body to do what he wants it to do is when he’s got his lightsaber in his hands, and he can’t exactly do that now.

So he sneaks off into a corner and watches instead. Poe is so easy and confident, and he attracts others like a moth to a flame, like they’re drawn in helplessly by his gregarious charm. He dances with his friends and strangers alike, and Ben is suddenly insanely jealous, watching a Teevan put his hands on Poe’s hips, watching Poe rub up against a pretty blonde girl.

The glasses on the table beside Ben start to rattle and he clenches his fist, struggling for control. He wants to drag Poe out of there, because Poe is _his,_ but he knows that’s not true. Poe doesn’t belong to him.

Ben only wants him to.

Ben waits for Poe to disappear with someone, or to find him and say, _sorry, Ben, I’ll see you in the morning, you can find your way back to the ranch, can’t you? Don’t tell my dad._

But instead Poe plops down into an empty chair next to Ben, leaning in, breath hot against Ben’s ear, his hair sweaty and curling, and says, “We can go whenever you want, Ben.”

That fiery sense of possessive, angry jealousy slides out of him. Ben holds tight to Poe’s waist on the speeder bike all the way back to the ranch.

-

It takes a bit over an hour on Poe’s bike – at least, a bit over an hour with Poe flying – to get to the ruins where the Rebels used to have their base, when they launched the attack on the first Death Star. Ben practices his katas in the hall where he thinks his family probably got their medals; he found his father’s once, stuffed in a drawer. At the time he had been awed by the idea that his father was so important.

After years of being the son of Princess Leia and General Solo, it doesn’t seem so great anymore.

Poe has scrambled up to a ledge, swinging his legs and watching Ben. The first couple of times they’d come here, Poe hadn’t shut up about how amazing it was, the history in this place, and about everything he wanted to do in his life. Sometimes Ben thinks Poe longs for a war, so that he has the opportunity for dashing heroism, too.

Ben thinks Poe would have made a perfect Rebel.

Ben makes himself stop thinking about Poe and concentrates on his movements. When he lets himself go he can feel that whisper, that place in his head that feeds on power, that craves it, that tells him, _this, this is what you should do, this is what you should be, you can be better than all of them, you can--_

And then Poe says, “I guess that would be almost as good as flying. The whole Jedi thing. The lightsabers.”

The voice quiets.

“Almost as good?” Ben asks, stopping, pushing his hair back out of his eyes and looking up at Poe.

“Nothing’s as good as flying.” Poe is smirking, just a little. “Nothing.”

Ben feels warm and has to look away.

Poe climbs back down to the ground, holding his hand out. “Can I try? Or is that, like, breaking a rule or something?”

After a moment of hesitance, Ben hands Poe the hilt. “Think we’ve broken worse rules.”

Poe holds the saber out in front of himself, still turned off, then swings experimentally.

Ben ducks out of the way and then says, “Maybe don’t light it up.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I’d just prefer to keep my limbs.”

“That’s fair.” Poe tries to copy Ben’s earlier movements but he stumbles a little and then laughs at himself. “Maybe I’ll stick with piloting.”

“Good idea,” Ben says, but he moves behind Poe to steady him, guiding his swing. “Try like this.” He ignores how firm and warm Poe feels, and how good his hair smells. He also ignores the jumbled thoughts Poe’s mind is shouting at him, too confused to make sense of, but something deep and throbbing mixed in that feels like want.

“Like this?” Poe says, voice low, and Ben has to make himself move back.

“Yeah, like that.”

“You look better when you do it,” Poe says, and offers the lightsaber back to Ben. Their fingers brush.

Heat rises up in Ben’s belly and it doesn’t fade.

-

Ben doesn’t want to leave Yavin 4. It feels more like home than any planet he’s lived on that he can remember. He doesn’t like admitting even to himself how much of that is because of Poe.

At the end of the summer his father comes to retrieve him in the _Falcon._ Kes tells him he is welcome any time, and Poe hugs him and makes Ben promise that he’ll comm frequently.

It is a promise Ben can make easily. He is more afraid of doing it so often that Poe grows tired of him.

Poe presses his lips to Ben’s cheek, the swiftest of light touches, and Ben feels it shudder all the way through him.

He thinks later that maybe that was the first moment he started to realize he cared about Poe as more than only a friend.

-

Ben sulks all the way to Corellia, and he sulks through the next few weeks. He feels miserable. His parents are exasperated. Ben fights with them constantly over things he knows are probably stupid but he can’t stop.

Uncle Luke tries working on his meditation again. Ben continues to struggle. His frustration shows in his interactions with his family.

The only thing that helps is when Ben is talking to Poe’s blue flickering hologram. Poe smiles at him and Ben feels calmer, happier.

The problem is that Ben can’t spend his life on holocalls with Poe.

-

The nightmares are worse back on Corellia. There is no Poe to curl around him and help keep the darkness at bay. When Ben wakes shaking or screaming or breaking all the lights in his room, there is no Poe to soothe him back to sleep.

He sweats through his sheets and keeps his mother up and in the morning he can hear his parents whispering when he comes to snatch toast for breakfast. He hears them whispering about how it keeps getting worse, and why hasn’t Luke found anything yet, and what is it that torments their son, or who, is there someone out there preying on him, or is it just his bloodline, is it too much power for him to hold, is it--

He shuts them out. They can’t help him.

“All right, kid?” his father asks, when Ben comes into the room.

“I’m not a kid,” Ben says, and gives no further answer.

They can’t help him.

-

Ben concentrates more on his lightsaber work and his control. His strength grows and grows and sometimes Uncle Luke looks at him like he doesn’t know what to do. Uncle Luke praises him but sometimes his shields falter and Ben can feel the tremors of shock and fear that linger in his mind, hiding where he hopes to conceal it from Ben.

He goes away again, and he doesn’t say that he’s looking for Jedi knowledge that might help him with Ben, but Ben knows that’s what he’s doing all the same.

It makes Ben feel like he is Uncle Luke’s project, like an experiment he is trying to run. No one is quite sure how he will turn out, what the results will be. It is an odd sensation, to feel alternately scrutinized and ignored. His parents are gone or they are studying him, with no real middle ground.

His family are all heroes, famous across the galaxy, and then there is Ben, the strange, aloof kid with more power than anyone knows what to make of. Ben hates his blood.

It must be easier to be a Dameron than it is to be an Organa, a Solo, a Skywalker.

-

He doesn’t always dream of darkness and pain. Sometimes he dreams of Poe, and sometimes when he sweats through his sheets it’s for an entirely different reason.

He can’t talk to his parents about that, either.

And he can’t talk to Poe about it.

_How are you sleeping?_ Poe will ask sometimes. _How bad is it?_

Ben will tell him, but on the days he calls when Ben has had the other sort of dream, Ben is so flushed with embarrassment that he can hardly meet Poe’s eyes.

-

Ben is sixteen when he has his first kiss.

He has spent a few weeks on Yavin 4 with Poe, swimming, climbing the Force tree, roaming the jungle and the city both. But towards the end of the summer, Poe takes him to Coruscant.

Poe is starting at the academy there when the new term begins, training to be an officer in the New Republic Navy. He has gone early to familiarize himself with the planet but honestly, Ben thinks it’s really mostly because Poe was too excited to wait. Ben can’t complain, not when Poe asked him to come with.

Well, he can complain a little. He is happy for Poe, and proud of him, but he is afraid of what this means. He is afraid of Poe going off and fulfilling his dreams because it means leaving Ben behind. It means that Poe will be surrounded by young pilots as talented as he is, and it means that Poe will be drawn into the future he wants.

Ben doesn’t think he fits there.

But for now, it’s only Ben and Poe, and it’s almost enough to squash down his nerves. There are two beds in their hotel room but they use only one; Poe curls around him at night and Ben sinks into it like security. Poe’s mind is safety and his arms are protection, and Ben sleeps better with him around than he has in a year.

The Coruscant crowds can get overwhelming, all that extraneous noise, but Ben focuses on Poe whenever he feels as though he might be dragged under. He thinks it must be wrong to rely so much on someone else but he can’t stop.

He will have to stop. Poe isn’t his to keep and once Poe starts at the Academy, everything will change. He might not want to have anything to do with Ben anymore; Ben will only be some dumb weird kid Poe used to know.

Relying on others is weakness. Ben is not weak.

They are outside a club, the lights shining in the night. Even when the skies are dark Coruscant feels bright and alive, the nightlife vibrant. Poe will thrive here, Ben knows. Not just with his flying but _here,_ Coruscant, with all its promise, so many lifeforms, so much to explore.

“You think too much,” Poe says, his shoulder pressed against Ben’s. They’re the same height now, which Poe seems to find endlessly amusing. _You’re gonna tower over me any day now, buddy,_ he says.

“Maybe I have to think twice as much to make up for you,” Ben says. Poe feels more than he thinks. He jumps into things and _maybe_ thinks about them afterwards.

“Ouch,” Poe says, but his eyes are crinkling like he’s close to a smile. He nudges Ben. “I was thinking though.”

Ben pretends to be shocked. “Oh?”

Poe laughs. “I know I’m not as good at shielding as that. You weren’t listening?”

Honestly Ben had been too caught up in his own head. “I try not to.” This is only partially true. Ben seeks out Poe’s mind more than is precisely acceptable. His mother would be appalled.

“I was thinking about you.”

Ben senses only sincerity in Poe. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You, and what happens after this.”

“After this I think I leave, and you stay.” Ben hopes Poe can’t tell how much that hurts.

“Well, yeah, but…” Now Poe’s mind is bleeding emotions all over but Ben can’t sort them out. Excitement and desire and anxiety. “Blast it, I’m terrible at this,” he says, and then Ben is having his first kiss before he even knows what’s happening.

Poe kisses like he knows what he’s doing. Or maybe he’s faking it – he’s good at that. His fingers are lightly pressed to Ben’s chin, holding him where he wants, and Ben’s lips are parted more out of surprise than anything else, while Poe kisses him firmly.

The sensation is… mind-blowing. Not even just the physicality of it, which is, frankly, amazing, the way Poe feels and tastes and smells, but the press of his mind against Ben’s. Ben’s shields collapse and all he knows is _Poe,_ around him, through him, in him, and Ben wants this to never end even as he thinks he might shake apart with the force of it.

When Poe draws back, Ben leans into him because he thinks he might fall. He tries to collect himself, restructuring his shields, his breath huffing into Poe’s face.

“I really wanted to do that before you leave,” Poe says, holding Ben’s arms like he doesn’t know how to let go.

“Okay,” Ben says, and stands there with Poe while Coruscant bustles around them.

-

It feels different when they go to bed that night. Now Poe has kissed him, and everything has changed, except Ben knows that he is still leaving and Poe is still going to the Academy, where everyone will fall for his charm and confidence and good nature. One kiss from Ben will change nothing, strange, awkward Ben, who can offer nothing.

But Poe lies next to him and now Ben knows what Poe’s lips feel like pressed against his, and all night Poe’s presence keeps the nightmares at bay.

And in the morning… Ben has been so good, so careful, but in the morning he wakes with Poe lying on his side facing him, Poe’s arm slung casually over Ben’s waist, and Ben is… having a moment, apparently, and it’s really kriffing awkward. He tries to will away his erection while Poe sleeps but he’s so… perfect, the way his long eyelashes fall against his cheek, the curl of his black hair over his ears. Ben has a desperate urge to rub himself off on Poe’s thigh and that is just…

Ben flushes with shame and rolls out of the bed, escaping into the refresher to deal with his problem.

One kiss. Kriff.

-

Except later they walk through the streets of Coruscant with dishes of custard, watching the airspeeders zoom by, and Poe leans in to brush his lips over the side of Ben’s face, casually intimate, enough to make Ben’s cheeks heat up.

Ben blurts out, “What are we doing?”

“Walking?”

“No, I mean…” Ben gestures between them. “This? Us?”

Poe’s eyebrows knit together and he dumps his empty bowl into a waste disposal as they pass. “I thought you wanted…” He trails off into confused silence.

“You’re going away,” Ben says. “To be a pilot. An officer.”

“Yeah? I was always gonna do that.”

“But now you’ve kissed me!”

Poe seems to suddenly understand. He stops and pulls Ben off to the side so they won’t be in anyone’s way. “Ben, I care about you. I wanted you to know, before you leave. That this is what I want. Us.”

“Like… like… boyfriends? Can I be your boyfriend?” Kriffing hell.

But Poe is smiling at him, and he kisses Ben’s mouth. “I was hoping you’d want me to be yours.”

Ben tries not to sway into him but fails. “You don’t think I’m…” _Weird, young, awkward, too much trouble,_ his mind supplies.

“I think you’re my best friend,” Poe says, circling his arm around Ben’s waist and tugging him back into the street, “and I want to kiss you all the time.”

The back of Ben’s neck feels like it’s on fire but he can’t stop his smile. “You can kiss me all the time,” he says, and Poe kisses the side of his face again.

-

When Ben has to leave, they hug in the spaceport and Ben doesn’t even care if anyone’s watching. Poe kisses him slow and open-mouthed and Ben melts; he wants to never ever let go but he knows he has to. Poe is going to be so great, and Ben has to go.

“If I’m busy, that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about you all the time,” Poe promises. “Because I am, I’m always thinking about you, I just wanted you to know that.” His face is flushed like he’s embarrassed but that’s never stopped Poe from doing anything. He is so open, and Ben doesn’t need to reach into his head to know what he’s feeling.

“Maybe think about what’s around you when you’re flying,” Ben says. “I won’t be blamed for you crashing into a moon, okay?”

Poe laughs and kisses him again. “I never crash.”

“Prove it,” Ben says, and holds him until the announcement that his transport is leaving assaults his ears.

He watches Poe for as long as he can once he’s boarded and tries not to feel like the world is ending, like Poe cares about him for only as long as he can see him.

-

The New Republic moves their capital to Bar’leth, so Ben moves with it. He starts at a new school but it honestly barely matters. He is still the weird one, and he still lacks Poe’s ease in making friends. He spends more time studying the Force than he spends on his schoolwork.

He talks to Poe less than he wants to. Ben is hesitant to bother him and though Poe comms when he can, it isn’t as often as would suit either of them.

Or maybe it does suit Poe. Poe is clearly blindingly happy on Coruscant, loving every second of his coursework and succeeding like Ben knew he would. Ben can’t hear his thoughts at all, so far away, but Poe’s face is as easy to read as ever.

The only comfort Ben finds is that whenever Poe says, _I miss you,_ his face says that he means it.

-

Ben’s sleep steadily worsens. It is a relief when he actually sleeps a night through. He has shattered the glass in his room so many times his father installs special light fixtures. That helps only a little; there is always something for him to break.

When he meditates he feels a darkness growing in his mind and he doesn’t know if it’s him or the voice that gives him his nightmares but it frightens him.

He doesn’t even tell that to Poe.

Poe doesn’t need to hear about Ben’s problems.

-

Ben’s eyes are closed as he crouches on the ground on his hands and knees. Dimly he can hear Uncle Luke’s voice telling him to focus, to breathe, to listen. Sweat drips down his face as he raises rocks and rubble and gravel into the air, everything he can reach, feeling each tiny stone.

It feels as though power courses through his veins as surely as his blood and he wonders how regular people can survive, not feeling this, not having this. He pushes a little harder, testing, and the ground heaves beneath him, cracking.

Ben opens his eyes, the rocks clattering down and setting up a cloud of dust.

Uncle Luke is watching him wide-eyed. He says, “Please don’t start an earthquake, your mother will kill me,” like he can’t think of what else to say, and Ben wonders if he could actually do that.

-

Han Solo doesn’t stay on Bar’leth, either. Ben wonders if he is meant to appreciate that Han stays longer than he did on Corellia.

He goes off with his racers again, and Ben’s mother is preoccupied with the Senate, as ever. Ben learns to be alone.

-

Ben spends the summer he turns seventeen on Yavin 4, and it’s glorious. He hasn’t seen Poe in person in almost a year and all his anxieties about Poe forgetting about him fall away the second Poe’s arms are around him and Poe is laughing into Ben’s neck, _Ben, you’re so tall, fuck,_ and when Poe kisses him, Ben wants him to never stop.

The first night Ben is there they stay up all night talking, sitting high in the Force tree. Their knees press together and Poe’s face is so animated and alive, and kriff, Ben missed him. Poe talks with his hands but sometimes one settles on Ben’s thigh and just that simple touch, the heat of his palm, makes Ben’s breath hitch.

They’re exhausted when they stumble inside the house in the morning, but Kes rolls his eyes and makes them breakfast, and they sleep half the day away.

It’s perfect.

-

Poe takes Ben back to the club they used to go to with Poe’s friends, but just the two of them this time. Ben grumbles and protests when Poe drags him dancing but he remembers watching Poe, before, that seething jealousy he had hardly understood, so as self-conscious as he feels now, he can’t honestly deny the thrill he gets from being this close.

He is half in love with the swing of Poe’s hips, with the way Poe pulls him close, with Poe’s hands on him and Poe’s smile and Poe’s laugh. Ben is tired and hot and sweaty by the time they stumble outside together, a little bit drunk, and they make out on Poe’s speeder bike until Poe is sober enough to fly.

-

The problem is that sleeping with Poe helps with the nightmares, but it doesn’t help with the fact that so much close proximity means that Ben can’t stop thinking about how much he would like to do more with Poe than make out.

Except he’s never done more than make out. He’s barely even made out, to be honest, and he doesn’t know if Poe… if Poe…

Ben doesn’t doubt that Poe cares about him. He can feel it in their every interaction. But Poe also spends most of the time far away from Ben, being friendly and charming and stupidly attractive. Ben is afraid both of being terrible at more than making out and of Poe not wanting to do it with him.

And that is something he will definitely never, ever tell Poe.

So instead he wakes up in torturous, miserable discomfort, too close and yet too far from Poe, wanting things he isn’t sure he can have.

-

“What are you going to do when you finish school?” Poe asks, as they climb through the temple ruins. He kicks a loose stone down to the ground and it lands with a clatter. “I mean, I know you have the Jedi thing, but is that what you’re going to do with your life? Be like Master Skywalker? Is that what you want?”

“Still trying to get me to be a pilot?” Ben’s attempt at deflection is likely obvious.

“You’d be great at it, and you love flying. You can come to Coruscant with me.”

The thought is undeniably tempting but somehow Ben can’t picture himself in a Navy uniform. “I don’t think that’s for me.”

“So what is? You could be a civilian pilot, fly transports, or move cargo.”

“Boring.”

Poe almost says, _you could race,_ but he stops himself before the words are more than an errant thought in his head. “Politics? Like your mother?”

Ben scoffs.

Poe offers him a little half-smile. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s just that… Will being a Jedi make you happy? Because it never seems like you’re happy.”

Happy. Ben considers. He enjoys the power of it; he enjoys his own strength. But living like Uncle Luke, studying, training, protecting people. Would that make him happy?

He isn’t sure he knows how to be happy, with that corner of his mind that he tries to wall off but can’t, with the constant fear of what is coming for him, what not even Uncle Luke understands. He yearns to reach his full potential but he wonders if he ever will, with Uncle Luke holding him back.

Ben terrifies his family. So how can he be happy?

He doesn’t realize that Poe has moved towards him until they’re face-to-face, Poe looking up at him and squeezing his hand. “I just want you to have what you want,” Poe says, a little awkwardly, but he’s teeming with genuine affection and sincerity.

“I know,” Ben says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Poe gives his hand another squeeze before letting go and moving away. He talks about moving forward in the Academy instead and Ben listens, wondering how it must feel to be so certain of your future.

Poe belongs in the stars and he has always known that. Ben wishes for one ounce of Poe’s surety.

-

The first night Ben is back on Bar’leth he wakes himself up screaming, a piercing pain in his head, and he flings his parents both across the room before he realizes what he’s doing.

His mother makes him hot chocolate and they all sit in awkward, uncomfortable silence at the dining room table until morning. No one can sleep. Ben’s head still throbs and he wishes for Poe.

In the evening Ben hides on the stairs and listens to his parents argue.

“Why can’t he just stop?” Han asks. “Maybe if he stops using it, the nightmares will stop, and all of it. Whoever-- whatever is out there will leave him alone, and he won’t be so…”

“It doesn’t work like that. He can’t just stop. It’s who he is.”

“You’re Force-sensitive, and you don’t use it.”

Ben’s mother makes a disgusted sound.

“Okay, fine!” Han exclaims. “I don’t know what I’m talking about. But he’s in pain, and he’s in danger, and maybe he’s dangerous, so all I’m saying is we haven’t explored all our options. Maybe Luke can block his powers somehow, or--”

And that’s when Ben climbs out his window. No one even notices that he’s gone all night.

-

Ben knows about the Dark Side. He knows about the Light and the Dark and the balance, he knows that there were Sith to oppose the Jedi.

What he wonders is, is the voice in his head the Dark calling to him, or is it the Sith? When the two, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, were defeated, was there another to take their place? Is there a Sith somewhere out there longing to take Ben as their apprentice? Because of his bloodline, this damn Skywalker blood that no one can shut up about? His famous family, and the stupid kriffing weight of it?

Or is there only the Dark Side, intangible, hiding in Ben’s head? Uncle Luke says everyone feels a pull. All that matters is how you react to it.

But Ben feels like something lives in his head, and he doesn’t know if it’s just his own darkness, or the true Dark Side, or the call of some lifeform out in the galaxy.

Uncle Luke has never been cagey about answering Ben’s questions and he doesn’t hide knowledge. It’s something Ben has always appreciated about him, even when he’s frustrated because he feels like Uncle Luke is holding him back, afraid of what Ben can do.

But when Ben asks about Darth Vader, Uncle Luke suddenly hedges his answers. He becomes reticent and vague and changes the subject.

Of course, that only makes Ben more intrigued.

-

At the university on Bar’leth, there is a huge, extensive library. Ben’s mother is astonished but pleased when he starts spending time there, though he thinks she would be much more disapproving if she knew what he was looking into.

He combs the archives for anything and everything he can find on the Sith and, in particular, Darth Vader.

He reads stories and reports and historical accounts that read like horror holos, and he watches grainy holographic footage of a huge black figure that is like something out of a nightmare. Ben is alternately terrified and enthralled, and he can’t help but wonder how that _feels,_ all that power.

Isn’t the Dark Side stronger, after all?

There are no limits when you aren’t afraid of what you can do, or who you might hurt.


	3. Chapter 3

Ben loses his virginity on his eighteenth birthday.

They’re on Bar’leth; Poe has only just arrived. In a few days they’re going to fly to Yavin but Poe was eager to see Ben so he came here first, and to bring Ben with him when he goes home.

Ben wants to be near him all the time. When he first caught sight of Poe in the spaceport the day before it felt like an electric current was running through him; he let Poe leap at him and embrace him and kiss him completely breathless, and Ben has felt ever since like he truly needs to be touching him.

They walk through the capital and Poe buys him dinner; he keeps apologizing for how long they’ve been apart, how infrequently they talked. Ben keeps telling him it’s fine because it is; he doesn’t say that it’s only what he expected. Ben knows he can’t hold Poe’s attention while he is on Coruscant living his dreams.

Poe is too busy looking at the stars and Ben is on the ground, trying to keep him there. Everyone knows birds can’t be caged.

Ben knows the apartment will be empty; his mother is off-planet and his father’s been gone the last month. He would be upset but honestly, he would rather spend his birthday with Poe. They walk home and Ben can’t explain why he feels so… expectant. His arm brushes against Poe’s and Poe is radiating longing and affection and a tiny twist of lust that makes Ben’s head spin. During dinner Poe’s gaze kept dropping to Ben’s mouth, to his throat, to the open collar of his shirt, and now he is thinking about that small sliver of skin, he is thinking about sliding his tongue over it, he is –

Ben shudders.

Probably mistaking it for chill, Poe slips off his jacket and lays it over Ben’s shoulders. “Too small to wear, but that works, right?”

Ben is too embarrassed to admit to how charmed he is so he plays it off like a joke. “Such a gentleman. Someone I can truly take home to Mother.”

“We already know your mother loves me, Solo,” Poe says, and Ben can’t deny it.

Inside the apartment they settle on the couch, flicking on the HoloNet. Poe finds a dumb romance and leaves it there. His arm is slung behind Ben’s shoulders and he shifts so his leg falls over Ben’s thigh. He is playing with Ben’s hair, stroking his fingers through the ends.

“Poe,” Ben says, the moment spinning out of his grasp, and Poe leans in and kisses him.

Ben’s mouth falls open immediately and he sighs, letting Poe press into it. Poe crawls into his lap and Ben’s hands fall to Poe’s hips, then lower to his ass. Poe makes a pleased sound into Ben’s mouth.

“Is this okay?” he says, peppering the words with kisses, soft and wet. “Ben? Kriff, I want you so bad, I’ve wanted you, can we do this? Is this what you want?”

“Stop fucking talking and let me say yes,” Ben says, tugging Poe’s hair, biting at his lip.

Poe huffs a startled laugh against Ben’s lips and grinds down; Ben moans.

“We can,” he tries, feeling painfully hard though they’ve barely started. “We can use my bed?”

It seems horribly far away. He’s sorry he suggested it.

“The couch is big enough,” Poe says, and Ben is unaccountably relieved. Kriff, he’s so desperate he doesn’t know how… Poe’s lust is reverberating through Ben’s head to mingle with his own, amplifying it.

Poe breaks off to fumble at Ben’s pants; he is awkward and clumsy. “I’m sorry, I… I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

Ben gapes at him. “But you…”

Poe’s skin is flushed so brightly. “I… I wanted it to be with you. I just thought… I wasn’t sure you wanted to.”

“I wanted to!”

And Ben barely has time to be embarrassed because Poe’s smile is so wide and happy and sweet, and he’s looking at _Ben_ like that, like Ben is someone he _wants_ –

“I thought maybe I shouldn’t push you,” Poe says, and Ben wants to smack him for being an idiot but he also thinks maybe this is okay, that they waited. Sometimes Poe feels like he is half a galaxy away from Ben even when they’re in the same room, handsome and popular and older, and Ben feels like a silly kid next to him.

So maybe this is okay.

Poe gets his hand into Ben’s pants and Ben’s head falls back against the top of the cushion. Poe kisses the underside of Ben’s jaw as his hand wraps around Ben’s dick.

Yeah, this is completely, absolutely okay.

-

They clean up the mess while that stupid romance film plays ignored in the background and then slink into Ben’s bed. Ben sleeps with Poe’s head over his heart.

There are no nightmares that night.

-

On Yavin it’s a bit more complicated.

Ben wants to be with Poe constantly, all the time, like his hormones are out of control, but he feels uncomfortable and self-conscious fucking Poe under Kes’ roof, with Kes down the hall. They still sleep in the same bed and Ben doesn’t know what Kes thinks, but most of the time Ben is too uneasy to do more than actually sleep.

(Most of the time. Sometimes Poe is very… distracting, and Ben muffles himself in the pillows. Once he accidentally lifts up the bed so that it crashes back down to the floor when he comes, and Poe doesn’t stop laughing for about ten minutes.)

So they find odd places, in the garage, one awkward but memorable time on the back of Poe’s bike, up against trees in the jungle or on their backs on the hard ground in the temple ruins. It works. Ben is horny and Poe is everything he wants so he thinks probably anywhere would suit, so long as Kes isn’t around.

He wonders why they fucking took so long.

-

When Ben leaves this time, and Poe goes back to Coruscant, it’s harder than it ever has been before.

Every time they’ve been parted Ben has been afraid of their relationship breaking, their friendship breaking, but this is the worst it has ever been.

Because now Ben feels like he has something tangible to lose, something he doesn’t know how to live without. He doesn’t know how to live without Poe anymore.

That scares him.

-

Ben is nearly eighteen and a half when Poe tells him he loves him.

Poe is on Bar’leth for a few days, visiting the NRDF base, and they’re having a fight.

He isn’t sure how it started. Something stupid, probably. He was feeling lonely and insecure because Poe took so long to come over, like Ben doesn’t matter, like he doesn’t miss him, like he isn’t as desperate to see Ben as Ben is to see him. And in his head Ben knows that’s ridiculous; he knows that Poe is busy and he isn’t here on holiday, but somehow he is still shouting because all he can think about is how this is never going to work.

“Be with one of your pilots!” he yells. “Your stupid kriffing classmates, I know that’s what you want! This is stupid, you’ve hung onto me for years but I’m not what you want, I’m just… I’m just that dumb kid my mom made you hang out with.”

“Fuck, you’re so dramatic,” Poe says, the words cutting deeper than Ben wants them to. “You’re being ridiculous; do you know how crazy you sound?”

“No one stays with their first boyfriend!”

“Yes, they do! Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

“I’m being practical, Poe, you’re…” Ben waves his hand in the air. “You’re who you are, and I’m who I am, and we should just admit that this is never going to go anywhere. I see you for a couple months a year at best, and you’ve got… You’ve got your friends, and so many beings who would--”

“I don’t want them! If I wanted to be with them I would be, Force, I want you, Ben, you fucking nerf herder.”

“Why?” Ben says, hating how whiny and pathetic it sounds.

“Because I love you, idiot!”

The words hang there in the air and Ben and Poe stare at each other. Poe is flushed and angry but he doesn’t take it back, and Ben can feel that he means it.

“I love you,” he says again, softer this time.

_You love me when you’re here,_ Ben thinks.

“I don’t want you to leave me,” Ben says, directed towards his shoes, feeling like the dumb kid he called himself.

“I won’t,” Poe says, moving forward to embrace him, pressing his head against Ben’s chest.

But one day, he will.

-

Ben’s parents are constantly fighting about him. They’re afraid. They are afraid of what Ben can do, and they are afraid of what Ben sees, in his head.

Then Uncle Luke comes. He smiles at Ben and clasps his shoulder and says, “How would you like to see Dagobah?”

“It’s a swamp,” Ben says in disgust.

“You’ll love it,” Uncle Luke says.

-

Ben hates Dagobah.

-

“I have something I need to do,” Uncle Luke says.

They’ve been on Dagobah for three standard months. Ben doesn’t know if it’s done any good.

He still has nightmares. He still feels as though something dark lives inside his head.

There is a cave and Ben can feel it calling to him but when he asked about it Uncle Luke’s face went set and still, his blue eyes awash with fear, and he told Ben he isn’t ready for what he will find in that cave.

That made Ben want to run there immediately. But when he snuck off, this sense of cold dread built and built within him, the dark presence growing, and before he reached the entrance he found he couldn’t go on. He slunk back to their camp and told Uncle Luke nothing of it.

“Will I be helping?” Ben thinks he knows the answer already but he asks anyway.

Uncle Luke shakes his head. “Not this time. I’ll drop you off wherever you want to go; it’ll just be for a few weeks.”

Ben picks at his nails and thinks about Poe. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. Wherever. Mom’ll be busy. Don’t even know where Dad is.”

“If you want to see your boyfriend you can just say so, you know.”

Ben feels his skin flush. “I can’t see him. He’s at the Academy.”

“He’s in school, not in the middle of a war. He can have visitors.” Uncle Luke’s voice is teasing and Ben can’t meet his eyes. “He’s at the big one on Coruscant, isn’t he? I’ve got connections.”

Inside his chest, Ben’s heart is doing flips. The idea of seeing Poe again, holding him, touching him, is so appealing Ben doesn’t know what to do. To his uncle, he says, “Whatever. I’ll do what you want.”

Uncle Luke beams at him and Ben thinks maybe he’s fooled no one.

-

Ben doesn’t tell Poe he’s coming; Poe likes surprises. Ben hopes that he’ll be a good one.

The academy on Coruscant is huge. Ben sees one of Uncle’s Luke’s so-called connections, who turns out to be Colonel Antilles. He gives Ben a visitor pass so he can wander around without getting into trouble; it isn’t a military base but they run tighter security than most schools do.

Half an hour later Ben is lost and self-conscious, wondering how the hell he’s supposed to find Poe, when he sees him across the grounds.

Poe is in the company of several others, his hair mussed, dressed in a flight suit unzipped to his waist. He is laughing and Ben’s heart pangs.

But the moment Poe catches sight of him is immediately obvious. His eyes widen and his expression morphs from disbelief to stunned pleasure. “Ben? Ben!”

He runs; Ben just stops where he is and lets Poe fling himself at him. Ben is nearly bowled over as he ends up with an armful of joyful Poe Dameron, kissing him madly, like he thought he’d never get to do it again. “Ben, Ben,” he keeps saying, breathing it into Ben’s mouth, his hands in Ben’s hair.

When he finally pulls back Ben feels dazed; he looks into Poe’s smiling face, taking in his flushed cheeks and the way his mouth is red and wet and extremely well-kissed. “Missed you,” Poe says, a bit breathless, and Ben can’t help his chuckle.

“Did you? I couldn’t tell.”

Poe swats him and turns to his friends, who have stayed a polite distance away but seem ready to tease Poe mercilessly. “This is my boyfriend, Ben,” he says, holding Ben around the waist.

A dark-skinned girl says, “I had no idea.”

“We didn’t even know you had a boyfriend. Never talks about you, not one word,” a guy with inky black hair addresses Ben. Something about his eyes makes Ben think he isn’t exactly human. Keshian, maybe.

“That makes us even,” Ben says. “I didn’t know he had friends.”

They all laugh, and Poe says, “Hey,” while he keeps grinning hugely and kisses Ben behind his ear.

Ben wants to be embarrassed but Poe’s happiness is so genuine and flattering and Ben _missed_ him.

He thinks he’s in love.

-

Ben doesn’t know how Poe arranges it but they spend the night in Poe’s room, alone, his roommates nowhere to be found.  

Poe’s bed is a little small and the mattress sags but it doesn’t matter. Ben revels in the feel of Poe here with him, the heat of his mouth, the softness of his skin. He relishes every perfect sound Poe makes, every gasp, every moan, and he sucks bruises into Poe’s body that will linger, so that Poe will remember, so that Ben will remember. Ben sobs and drags his nails over Poe’s back while Poe murmurs into his ear, _Ben, I missed you, Ben, please, like this? Tell me, that’s it, you’re so beautiful, I love you, Ben, Ben, come on, please, come for me, please, Ben--_

They sleep curled together, legs tangled, Poe’s hand in Ben’s hair, and Ben is too hot, to the point where he almost feels as though he’s suffocating, but he stays in Poe’s arms and wishes they could be like this always.

-

Ben gets a hotel room outside the school and Poe sleeps there most nights; it’s easier that way. They can be together without bothering his roommates. It’s better like this anyway, because Ben doesn’t know how to act around Poe’s friends. He doesn’t know them, and they don’t know him, and Ben has never been good with people. Poe tries to make Ben feel included but Ben doesn’t fit here, in Poe’s life.

When they’re alone in Ben’s hotel room, it seems like that doesn’t matter. They always work better when it’s just the two of them, secluded like the rest of the galaxy doesn’t matter, like their lives don’t extend beyond the room they’re in, like their problems don’t exist. In Ben’s bed it’s only them and nothing else matters.

He gets caught up in the feel of Poe against him, beneath him, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s just _feeling,_ but that’s never good, because when he doesn’t think he loses control. He is only rutting up against Poe, kissing his neck, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he tightens his fist and Poe makes this awful choked sound and Ben is horrified. He strokes his hands over Poe’s skin and bends over him as he wheezes, feathering kisses to Poe’s face.

“Poe, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I--”

“It’s okay,” Poe says, and his hands are fluttering over Ben’s back. “Ben, it’s okay, really. You didn’t hurt me.”

“But I did!” Ben pushes back onto his heels, looking down at Poe. “I hurt you.”

There is a redness in Poe’s cheeks. “I… Maybe I didn’t mind.”

“What?”

“I was just surprised. But Ben…” Poe reaches for him and Ben settles back over him, their faces so close together. “You can do it again. If you want.”

“I’ll hurt you,” Ben protests, though desire is swelling within him. He thinks that must be wrong, he shouldn’t want –

“I trust you,” Poe says, so certain, and kriff, Ben loves him.

He curls his hand carefully, intentionally, and Poe makes that noise again but it isn’t so bad this time; he hooks his legs around Ben’s waist so their lower bodies are in contact and it’s so fucking good, and Ben squeezes, and Poe rocks against him.

Poe makes a strangled sort of moaning sound through his restricted airway and it seems to shudder through Ben. He thinks, _fuck, yes, fuck,_ and he doesn’t know if this is right but it feels too good to stop.

-

“It’s good that you’re here,” Poe says, a few days before Uncle Luke is set to arrive to retrieve Ben. “So I can ask you in person. It’s better than a holocall.”

“Ask me what?” Ben doesn’t know why he feels vaguely nauseous. Maybe it’s the anxiety that’s wafting off Poe.

“I have a chance to go to Pamarthe for the break,” Poe says, his gaze a bit skittish, like he thinks Ben will be unhappy with what he has to say. “To fly. With a group of Pamarthan racers? I had to apply, and there are only a few of us who get to go, from the academies, and they selected me, but it means I won’t get to spend any time with you. I’ll have to go right to Pamarthe, and then back again to Coruscant before the term starts.”

Ben listens with a horrible sinking feeling, like a lead weight is dropping through his insides. It’s happening already, Ben thinks. Poe will leave him behind to be extraordinary, because that’s who he is.

“You should go,” Ben says, and maybe it’s too quick, too sure, because Poe stares at him in obvious surprise.

“Really? You don’t care?”

_I care a lot,_ Ben thinks, but he won’t say that. “It would be stupid not to go. It’s an amazing opportunity.”

“I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Ben says. “Go.”

_I won’t hold you back,_ he thinks. _I won’t._

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll probably have to stay with Uncle Luke anyway. Training.”

“I’ll comm you every day,” Poe promises, pressing kisses to Ben’s mouth.

Ben knows Poe means it, and maybe he will, at first.

But one day he’ll be too busy, and then he’ll forget, and then it won’t seem so important. Ben Organa-Solo, his dull boyfriend back home.

Poe presses Ben back into the bed and Ben pretends it can always be like this, that he can hold Poe forever.

-

_Ben, I’m sorry I missed you, I’m still getting used to the time difference –_

_Looks like we missed each other again, I’m sorry, I’ll try again –_

_Hey, Ben, I guess you’re busy –_

_Ben, will you try and comm me back? If you have a chance?_

_Kriff, I’m sorry, but it’s been ages since we’ve talked and I’m getting worried, you’d tell me if you weren’t okay, wouldn’t you? Please, Ben, I miss you –_

_Ben, I love you._

-

Ben doesn’t know why he starts avoiding Poe’s communications.

He tells himself it’s for Poe, that he’s trying to give Poe space to enjoy himself, but he knows that isn’t true. Ben is afraid that Poe will be enjoying himself too much. He is afraid to see Poe happy, to hear Poe’s happy stories, because that will mean that Poe is fine without him.

Poe doesn’t need Ben.

Ben is holding him back.

Sometimes Ben freezes Poe’s holomessages mid-frame, pauses them on the image of his face. Ben imprints it into his memory, the warmth of Poe’s brown eyes, the way he always has a stray curl falling over his forehead or just in front of his ear, the wide stretch of his mouth. His nose, just too big, like Ben’s, but somehow perfect for his perfect handsome face. Ben looks at the image of Poe and remembers how he feels, how he tastes, and wonders if Poe will be off finding someone else to kiss.

-

In a moment of weakness Ben hits the button to accept when Poe comms him.

“I was beginning to think you were avoiding me,” Poe says, and though he’s smiling there is too much hesitance in it, and too much of a question in Poe’s tone for it not to be true. Poe is worried.

“Just busy, I guess,” Ben mumbles, and he can hardly meet Poe’s eyes.

“Ben, are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know, I’m just… Are _we_ okay?”

_Do you love me really?_ Ben thinks. _Do you love me more than flying? Do you love me more than all the pretty people who must be falling around your feet? Have you kissed them? Have you loved them?_

“Unless you’ve got something to tell me,” Ben says.

He can tell that Poe is still worried but something eases in his expression. “Only that I miss you,” he says, so earnest, and Ben wants to fly all the distance between them so he can kiss Poe’s beautiful mouth.

“Lame,” Ben says, and cherishes the sound of Poe’s laughter.

-

When Poe returns to Coruscant, Ben is on Dantooine with Uncle Luke. There used to be a Jedi Temple here, back in the days of the Old Republic, or so Uncle Luke tells him. He thinks he can feel something, though, in the ruins, a latent sense of power, a lasting remnant of the Force.

At night he thrashes on his bedroll, shaking and sweating, and he knows something is coming for him but he is caught, stuck in place. Someone is screaming but it isn’t him; he thinks it’s Poe, Poe is in pain, and Ben thinks it’s because of him, he’s done something, he--

He jerks awake and lightning crackles at the ends of his fingers; Uncle Luke cries out his name and blue sparks shoot from Ben’s fingertips into the ground. Ben’s breath heaves and he can feel Uncle Luke’s fear like something tangible in the air.

“Ben,” he says again, crouched down beside him, and Ben hides his face in his hands.

“I didn’t even know I was doing it,” he says. “I didn’t know I could, I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Uncle Luke says. “It’s okay.”

It isn’t okay, though.

-

Ben is able to talk to Poe only infrequently. It’s gotten worse over the years, as Poe gets busier with his studies, and as Ben is often out of contact when he’s traveling with Uncle Luke, but this year is the worst. Even when Ben is looking at Poe’s face on a viewscreen, he doesn’t know what to say. He feels like a distance is growing between them that he doesn’t know how to breach.

Pamarthe hurt them, and Ben thinks that was maybe mostly his own fault.

Ben sits on a rocky ledge in the moonlight and feels sorry for himself. He thinks about Poe, so far away, so content without him, and it makes him feel like he wants to vomit. There is a voice in his head that tells him he doesn’t need Poe anyway, he never did, there is so much more for him than foolish sentiment, he could be so much _more,_ and energy seems to suffuse his insides.

He thinks of how it had felt, that electric tingle from his hands, and he is frightened but he wants to see if he can do it again. The lightning surges forth at his bidding, flickering, but strong, and Ben feels as powerful as he ever has before.

Uncle Luke never told him he could do this. Uncle Luke holds him back.

He remembers the holovids he watched on Bar’leth and wonders why the Light is so restrained when they could do so much.

He knows better than to discuss it with Uncle Luke.

-

Poe surprises him once, when Ben is back on Bar’leth. There is a celebration for the winter solstice on the planet and Ben doesn’t know how Poe finagles it but he comes to visit, showing up outside the Organa-Solo apartment without warning. His smile is a bit shy and Ben kisses him so hard they end up slammed against the opposite corridor wall.

“I guess I don’t need to ask if it’s okay I came,” Poe gets out a few minutes later, his hair completely mussed and his mouth red. Somehow Ben has untucked Poe’s shirt and his jacket is hanging off one shoulder.

“Come inside, no one’s here but me,” Ben says, entirely unable to wait, pulling Poe through the door and kissing him again.

Ben fucks him against the wall, his hand tangled in Poe’s hair and pulling. They do it again in Ben’s bed, a little slower and less urgently, and after they lay on their backs, sweaty and catching their breath.

“So, I thought there was like a party or something?” Poe volunteers, but neither of them can be bothered to get out of bed.

When they sleep Ben walks Poe’s dreams, curling around his mind. It is a terrible violation that Ben recognizes but he does it anyway, and it isn’t the first time. Poe’s mind offers peace even when his dreams aren’t exactly peaceful, like a haven from Ben’s own troubles.

In the morning he feels ashamed but only because he knows it is weakness, to cling so tightly to another, to expect another being to ease his pain because Ben is too weak to face it himself.

He can’t keep doing it. He can’t use Poe as a buffer; he needs to be stronger.

-

When Poe leaves and the nightmares come back worse than before, Ben is only further assured. He can’t rely on Poe. Poe is almost never here. Poe probably forgets Ben once he’s out the door.

Ben can only rely on himself; his family only lets him down, and if Poe hasn’t done so quite yet, he will.

Everyone lets him down.

-

Ben goes to Coruscant for Poe’s graduation ceremony. Poe looks so handsome in his uniform, his new lieutenant’s rank badge pinned to the front, and Ben doesn’t know what to feel. He is so proud of Poe, finishing at the top of his class, set to accomplish everything he’s ever wanted to, but he is afraid of the future. While Poe thrives, Ben continues to falter.

The only time Ben ever feels right is when he moves through his lightsaber katas, or when he practices the skills Uncle Luke doesn’t know he is cultivating. He can stop objects in flight and hold them there, and he can burn a tree into ash with his lightning. Not even Poe can make him feel as good as he does when he pushes his limits, testing his strength farther and farther.

Sometimes when he is in the capital on Bar’leth he drops his shields and reaches out, tip-toeing through minds to see what he can see. Sometimes he orders caf and then convinces the proprietor he has already paid, or he passes smug former classmates in the street and plays little mind games on them, making them think they’ve forgotten or lost things.

Uncle Luke would be horrified.

His mother would be furious.

He wonders if it’s irony that they don’t even notice.

There is a party the night of Poe’s ceremony, and Ben goes for Poe. Poe is exuberantly cheerful, drunk on emerald wine and his own success, and Ben feels that angry jealousy prick at him when he watches Poe with his friends. But Poe gets even handsier when he’s drunk and he settles by Ben, sitting in his lap and kissing Ben’s neck.

They retreat together and collapse into Poe’s bed, kissing and touching and rutting, getting undressed only enough to fit hands to skin. Poe sucks bruises onto Ben’s skin and Ben clenches his fist until Poe’s face reddens and his groans stick in his throat; he squeezes tighter and tighter until Poe comes all over his own stomach. He gasps and wheezes and strokes Ben’s back, and Ben thrusts into Poe hard and fast until he comes with his face buried in the crook of Poe’s neck.

“Stars,” Poe says, his voice still rough, and Ben can feel how sore he is when he dances through Poe’s thoughts.

It’s everything it should be and yet nothing that Ben wants; they lie together and Poe murmurs into Ben’s ear, _I love you, I love you, I missed you,_ and it isn’t enough anymore.

In the morning they are still together but Ben feels as though Poe is light years away from him.

He is only waiting for Poe to realize it.

-

Poe is stationed at the Naval base on Bar’leth following his graduation and for about a standard month it’s amazing. He’s busy and his schedule is terrible but when he’s not flying he’s here, with Ben.

Ben is issued a pass that lets him come and go on the base and he stays in Poe’s tiny apartment, far worse than what he is used to but there is something strangely charming about it all the same. They have never really cohabitated like this before, to this extent, and while there’s a learning curve Ben thinks it helps. When he’s sitting on the kitchen counter while Poe burns their dinner or hopping in the refresher early so they can shower together before Poe leaves, it feels like everything has slotted into place somehow, like Ben’s reservations and misgivings were just a bad dream.

Then Uncle Luke comes back from an extended trip to the Outer Rim and collects Ben. He wants to continue with Ben’s training and he wants Ben to help him when he goes to assist in settling disputes, like the Jedi used to do.

_I should have been a pilot,_ Ben thinks, lying awake beside Poe their last night together.

But there is a thrum of power in his veins and Ben doesn’t know how to give that up.

-

Ben is ill-suited to Jedi peacekeeping. He is easily frustrated with the beings they are meant to be helping and he would rather be fighting. He doesn’t understand the point of lightsaber training if they are always meant to avoid using it.

Uncle Luke earns smiles and hugs and offers of meals and stays in homes. Ben earns wariness.

He returns to Bar’leth and wonders why he ever thought this was the path for him.

-

Ben and Poe are unable to recapture the simple happiness of their first month together on Bar’leth.

Poe is almost never around. He works long shifts on the base and flies patrols; he is eager to make a name for himself and is constantly volunteering for extra work. When he is home he is tired and distracted.

Ben used to be able to tell Poe everything but now he fears telling him anything. He is afraid of telling Poe his concerns about his future as a Jedi because he feels… inadequate, somehow, matched with Poe’s success and certainty. He is afraid to tell Poe of his dabblings with his powers because he knows, in his heart, that he shouldn’t be doing it. He knows that he is listening to that dark voice and that no one would understand, not even Poe. Maybe especially Poe, Poe who is so good and brave, so eager to do the right thing.

“I’m going to be gone for a few weeks,” Poe whispers to him at night, as they lie side-by-side, Poe’s hand rubbing over Ben’s hip. “I’m sorry.”

He is always sorry.

Ben could _make_ Poe stay with him. He could reach into Poe’s head and he could make him do anything Ben wanted, he could –

Ben is immediately horrified at himself. The urge remains, and the fact that he could even _think_ it –

This isn’t like the games he plays, talking shop owners into letting him walk out with biscuits he hasn’t paid for or paying back former acquaintances for having been cruel to him. This is _Poe_.

_This is why they sent you away,_ Ben thinks. _They are afraid of you._

His parents didn’t know what to do with him so they foisted him off on Uncle Luke, but it doesn’t matter where Uncle Luke takes him, Dagobah or Dantooine or anywhere in between. Ben is wrong.

He thinks about his dream, Poe screaming, and is terrified that he could hurt Poe.

Ben is afraid of himself.

-

He should stop, he knows. He should stop pushing, stop testing, stop giving in to the urge to be better, stronger, more powerful. There is darkness in it, the sort of darkness that would lead him to hurt someone he loves.

Ben knows his control is faulty and his temper is fierce. He could hurt someone – hurt Poe – in as little time as it takes him to react. It would be an accident, but that wouldn’t matter, not after it was done.

But he only tries harder. When Poe is away Ben trains. If he masters his abilities, this deep well of power within him, then he won’t have to worry about anything. He will keep the nightmares at bay himself, or he will banish them. He will need no one because he will be strong enough himself.

If he can control it, Poe will never be hurt, not by Ben, not by anyone. Ben will protect him.

And he will have something, finally, to be proud of, something that’s his, something that he’s done, to lay beside all Poe’s accomplishments.

Maybe then Poe would love him better, love him more than flying, more than duty, more than the Navy and the New Republic. Maybe Poe would stay.

Sometimes Ben thinks maybe he can hold Poe here with him, if he tries enough, if he wants enough, if he loves enough, but in his heart he knows he can’t. If he did, he would be robbing Poe of what makes him who he is, of what makes him the person Ben loves.

That never stops Ben from wanting it, though. If he could only love Poe fiercely enough, strongly enough, deeply enough, if Poe could _love_ him –

But there will never be anything that’s enough.

-

When Poe is away the nightmares return. Ben tries and tries but he isn’t strong enough. He resents Poe for leaving and he resents the fact that he _needs_ Poe because he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t need anyone, he should be strong enough himself.

Poe clearly doesn’t need Ben. He smiles when he comes back and tells Ben he missed him but it doesn’t hurt Poe when they are apart, not like it hurts Ben. Poe is too busy flying, too busy playing the hero, too busy laughing with his friends in the Navy.

So Ben leaves for a while; he goes with Uncle Luke to a planet in the Western Reaches on one of his peacekeeping excursions. Ben hates it there but he can leave, too. He can leave, just like Poe leaves him.

But it’s just the same when he arrives back on Bar’leth. Poe kisses him and says he missed him but he’s sorry, he has to run, he has a shift. He comes back to the apartment late and Ben wants to pretend to be asleep but instead he lets Poe fuck him because he needs it, he needs to feel Poe, and he _hates_ it.

He shouldn’t need anyone, and he shouldn’t need Poe, because Poe doesn’t need him.

-

He crushes rocks into fragments, and starts a fire in an open field. The sound of Poe screaming echoes in his head and he shuts it out.

He will never hurt Poe. He will be stronger than that.

A small voice tells him that if he leaves, he will never be able to hurt Poe. He can’t hurt someone who isn’t there.

If he leaves Poe, then Poe won’t be able to leave him first.

-

Ben is twenty-one when he makes Poe stop loving him.

He is in his parents’ apartment because Poe’s crummy place doesn’t feel like it used to, like it was a home he was making with Poe. It feels like the place Poe goes to when he isn’t doing something better, the place where Ben waits for the day when he will be the most important thing in Poe’s life.

Poe finds him there, though, and stands uncertainly inside Ben’s old bedroom doorway. “You don’t want to come over?” he says. “Keep me warm?”

He’s teasing, but Ben isn’t in the mood. “I’m tired.”

“That’s okay. We don’t have to do anything. I like falling asleep next to you.”

“Sorry,” Ben says, and looks at a spot on the floor so he won’t have to look at Poe.

“Hey,” Poe says, and moves closer. He touches Ben’s hand. “Are you okay?”

“I told you, I’m tired.”

“That’s not what I mean. I just… You’ve been so distant lately, and I’m not sure what’s wrong. Did I do something? Please tell me, so I can fix it.”

“You can’t fix everything, Poe.”

Poe blinks wide eyes at him. “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Ben says, and turns away.

“Ben, please.” Poe is so close again and Ben cannot escape him. “What have I done?”

_It isn’t you,_ Ben thinks. _You are only who you always were. You were never going to love me enough._

He reaches out with his mind and caresses Poe’s, feeling the edges of his thoughts, the emotions bleeding over. Poe does love him; Ben can feel that. He has always been able to feel that. Poe loves him as well as he can; Poe does nothing by halves.

But Ben loves only Poe, and Poe loves so much more than Ben.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore,” Ben says, forcing the words out. It isn’t what he meant to say but it feels right.

He feels the recoil in Poe’s head and pulls back, restructuring his shields. This will hurt more if he doesn’t contain himself.

“What?” Poe says.

“It’s not working.”

“It’s not working?” Poe repeats, like he can’t make sense of the words he’s hearing. “I mean, I know I’ve been busy, and you’ve been away a lot too, but Ben, I love you. If you’re unhappy, we can talk about it. I can be better. We can be better. You have to let me try, you can’t just-- We can work through this.”

“There’s nothing to work through.”

“Five years!” Poe exclaims. “We’ve been together more than five years! And you want to throw it away, just like that?”

“And how many months have we actually been on the same planet?” Ben asks, and he doesn’t need to fake his bitterness.

“I never said it was easy.”

“Maybe I finally realized it isn’t worth it.”

Poe flinches like he’s been slapped. “You mean me? I’m not worth it?”

Ben looks away because looking at Poe’s face hurts too much.

“Why are you so afraid of being happy? Can’t you just…” Poe breathes out, and he is still close enough that Ben can feel it on his skin. “You can’t honestly mean this.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.” Ben makes himself meet Poe’s eyes. “I’ve never lied to you.”

“Don’t you love me anymore?” A muscle twitches in Poe’s face and he seems to crumble under the weight of sudden realization, but he straightens himself again. “Did you ever love me?”

_I love you, I love you, I love you,_ Ben thinks, but that’s not good enough, it has never been good enough, Ben isn’t what Poe needs and he’s afraid, he can’t be more than this, he can’t give Poe any more, he’s given too much and it wasn’t _enough._

“Do you love me?” Poe asks, and his voice cracks.

“I…I…” Ben swallows; his throat is dry and he can’t say anything.

Poe’s face crumples, and then his expression hardens, like he is trying to protect himself. “You can’t even say it. I don’t know why I thought any different.”

_It’s not true,_ Ben thinks. _I love you so much it hurts, can’t you see?_

But then he thinks, _this is better._ Poe loves the stars more than anything, more than he can ever love Ben. He loves the galaxy, the peace his family helped craft. That’s where he belongs.

He never belonged to Ben.

Ben needs to stand on his own, and he should have always known that.

He keeps his voice careful and even. “I’m sorry you wasted so many years on me.”

“I’m sorry you think they were a waste.” Poe hesitates just a moment longer and his eyes are so, so bright, and then he turns. He says, “I guess I’ll see you around sometime.”

And then he walks out the door.

For a moment Ben stands there, not sure what he feels, anger and sorrow and disappointment and regret all jumbled together. But he can still feel Poe, just outside the room, and he can feel when Poe starts to cry, shameful tears he can’t control, and his pain echoes in Ben’s head until he doesn’t know which emotions are his and which are Poe’s.

Even when Poe finally walks away it doesn’t stop, Ben can still feel him, and he won’t cry, he _won’t –_

His lightsaber is in his hand before he knows it and when he comes back to himself his desk is in pieces, charred wood, bits of circuitry, the room a mess. He lets the saber fall from his hand.

He is sitting on the floor, tears leaking from his eyes, surrounded by detritus when his mother bursts in, eyes wild. “Ben! Ben, what’s wrong? I felt it all the way in the Senate chamber, I… Ben?”

She crouches beside him.

Ben doesn’t know if he wants to shout and rail at her or if he wants her to hold him in her arms and let him cry into her chest, like when he was very small and he thought she could protect him from everything.

She can’t protect him from anything.

He is so tired.

He says, “I loved him, but it wasn’t enough.”

“Oh, Ben,” his mother says, and wraps her arms around him.

Ben doesn’t return the embrace but he doesn’t move, either.

-

Ben doesn’t see Poe around. He goes traveling with Uncle Luke, training, all over the galaxy.

The nightmares get worse.

He gets them during the day, too.

Uncle Luke emphasizes his meditation but nothing helps. He knows Uncle Luke is worried and afraid and helpless because nothing he does makes a difference. They go searching for forgotten Jedi knowledge but nothing makes it better; it never stops.

It gets worse.

Ben is so afraid.

Sometimes he wants Poe so badly that it aches, it hurts, it _burns._

Poe was the only one who ever made anything better.

But he imagines Poe happy and successful, fulfilling all his dreams in the Navy, and he never makes the call he wants to. Poe doesn’t need him. Poe is better off without him.

Ben has to do this on his own. He isn’t weak. He needs no one.

Ben is lonely and so, so afraid.

-

Uncle Luke talks about finally opening his school, so that he can train other children like Ben. He says that he would like Ben to be a part of it.

But Ben can feel the fear that still suffuses Uncle Luke’s mind, fear of what Ben can do, fear of Ben’s power, fear that he hasn’t helped Ben at all and fear of the damage Ben could do.

Uncle Luke is filled with doubt and Ben cannot hide from it.

Ben feels the darkness growing and wonders if it’s just him. He relishes the feeling of power when he uses his abilities and he thinks that’s wrong. He must be wrong.

He remembers Uncle Luke talking about the Light and the Dark and the balance.

_You choose,_ Uncle Luke said. _Every day you choose what you will be._

Ben is no longer certain of any of his choices.

-

When Ben is twenty-three, his world falls apart.

Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader.

He is the blood of Vader.

His family has lied to him his entire life. They lied to him, and they didn’t trust him, and they let him believe –

And Uncle Luke says he’s sorry, he’s so sorry, he wanted to adhere to Ben’s mother’s wishes, and he knows how it feels to be lied to but _it’s okay, Ben, just--_

He says, _You can’t listen to what they’re saying, your grandfather did terrible things but he was a good man who let himself be seduced by the Dark Side, and in the end he chose the Light, he chose me, me and your mother, he chose_ you, _Ben--_

And his mother’s transmission is so regretful and Ben can hardly look at her face he’s so _angry—_

And there is a blinking light that shows a message from Poe, and Ben can’t look at it.

He can’t.

The anger builds and builds and builds and Ben wonders where he is supposed to put it because he cannot contain it.

The voice in his head is calling, calling, calling.

Ben answers.

-

He goes to the cave on Dagobah.

He is still afraid but the fear spurs him onwards; the cold dread he remembers now feels more like anticipation. He pushes through the overgrowth, branches catching on his sleeves, in his hair, and a snake hisses at him before slithering away.

The cave is damp and dark. A figure stalks towards him, huge, black, ominous.

Ben drops to his knees in the dirt. He says, “I am sorry it took me so long, Grandfather. I didn’t understand but now I’m ready to listen.”

**_End_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the fic, and if you did please consider letting me know. :) I am on Tumblr [here](http://serceleste.tumblr.com).


	4. Epilogue: Poe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did end up writing a little something from Poe's POV, bridging the end of the fic into TFA. Thanks to everyone for being so enthusiastic about the story!

“Turn on the HoloNet News,” Karé says, pushing past Poe into his quarters as soon as the door slides open.

“Hello to you, too,” Poe says, and watches while Karé switches on the news herself.

_\--Organa, princess of Alderaan, is the biological daughter of Darth Vader--_

“Kriffing hell,” Poe swears.

“You didn’t know, then,” Karé says, watching his face. “You dated Ben for how many years? And you didn’t know?”

“Ben didn’t know,” Poe says, sinking down onto the end of his bed.

Karé is clearly skeptical. “Are you sure about that?”

“He told me everything.”

But Poe is suddenly uncertain. Could Ben have kept this from him? Could Ben have not trusted him to know? Had Ben been afraid of what Poe would think?

All of Poe’s surety of how Ben felt about him had come into doubt that final night. Maybe Poe never really knew him after all, and the realization is painful even now, years later.

“I wouldn’t have cared,” Poe says, feeling lost. “It doesn’t matter. If it’s true, it doesn’t matter. I love-- I loved him.”

“I know,” Karé says, and sits beside him. “Everything they’re saying is druk.”

“What are they saying?”

“You don’t want to know,” Karé tells him, and Poe lets it go.

“I need…” He swallows. “I need to talk to Ben.”

Even if Ben doesn’t want to hear from him, Poe needs Ben to know that he’s here, if Ben needs him. For anything. He needs Ben to know that Poe is on his side, always, no matter what happened between them. Poe loved him too much for that to ever change.

Even if Ben feels nothing for him.

“Okay.” Karé squeezes his shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Poe says, and Karé lets herself out.

_\--Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi, hero of the Clone Wars, long believed to have died in the purge, the biological father of Leia Organa and her twin Luke Skywalker, was actually the Sith known as Darth Vader--_

Poe turns off the news.

He sits in front of his comm unit and thinks about what to say.

It has been so long. Ben never tried to see him, after, and Poe always assumed that meant he didn’t want to. Losing Ben’s friendship, even independently from the love Poe maybe never actually possessed, hurt like losing a limb. Ben had been part of Poe’s life since he was sixteen years old, the closest friend he had.

He had thought about finding him so many times. Running to him, wherever in the galaxy he was. The only thing that had stopped him was knowing that Ben clearly didn’t want to see him. Ben had been the one to push and Poe had his pride.

Poe fingers the transmit button and wonders if he shouldn’t do anything. Ben doesn’t want to see him, doesn’t want to hear from him, doesn’t care what Poe thinks or has to say. Why should this change anything?

But Poe has to. He has never been able to stop himself from caring, even though he tried, stars, he tried.

He records a message.

The words come haltingly and awkwardly. “Ben, it’s me. Poe. I guess you can see that. I… I heard on the-- I just want you to know that I’m here, if you want to talk, or… Anything, Ben. What they’re saying is bantha shit and it doesn’t matter; I know who you are. I know who you’ve always been. Please…”

Poe swallows, and wants so badly to say, _Please talk to me, please come to me, please, please, please,_ but he knows that isn’t for Ben. It’s for him. _Please tell me it didn’t matter, tell me you didn’t mean it, tell me you love me._

It’s pathetic.

So he says, “If you ever need my help, I’ll be there. No matter what.”

The urge to finish with _I love you_ is so strong that Poe feels as though he might choke on the words. Instead all he manages is, “Bye, Ben.”

He transmits the message.

-

Poe receives no response.

He tries again, and again.

Nothing.

-

Poe hasn’t had much to do with Leia Organa in the past years, but he sees her now and then in the course of his duties. She always looks busy and harried but she smiles at him just like she used to, like she doesn’t resent him for making a mess of everything with her son.

When Poe places a call to her senatorial suite, she answers quicker than he had expected. He is a bit caught off guard; he’d expected to have to leave a message. Instead her image coalesces in hologram form.

“Senator Organa, I’m sorry if this is a bad time.” Poe pauses. “Of course it’s a bad time. Stars.”

“Not for you, Poe,” Leia assures him. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, I’m… Ma’am, have you heard from Ben? He won’t answer my comms.”

“I thought you’d get to that,” Leia murmurs. “He won’t answer mine, either.”

“And your brother?” Poe presses.

Leia hesitates. “He tells me Ben was very unhappy. But of course I knew he would be. I… I waited too long.”

“So he didn’t know,” Poe says on an exhale. He doesn’t know why he feels relieved.

No, he does know. Perhaps it’s petty, considering the scope of the revelation, but Poe can’t help but feel relieved knowing that it wasn’t that Ben hadn’t trusted him.

Ben hadn’t known at all.

“No,” Leia says.

Poe knows it isn’t his place to get involved and he knows that whatever he might say will not only be no comfort to Leia but will also be a lie: Poe believes it was wrong to keep this from Ben, no matter how pure he is sure Leia’s intentions must have been. Ben deserved to know. He deserved to hear the truth from his own family. “And Ben isn’t with Master Skywalker anymore?”

“I’m afraid not.” Leia’s concern is obvious; she either can’t hide it or she doesn’t feel she has to in front of Poe.

“Then where is he?”

“I wish I knew.”

There is something in the way she says it that lets Poe know she is actually deeply, deeply afraid, and that makes Poe afraid. _Ben,_ he thinks, _oh, stars, Ben._

“There’s something you aren’t saying,” Poe says, and Leia’s expression closes off.

“Don’t worry, Poe,” she says. “You shouldn’t concern yourself.”

“I shouldn’t concern myself? Seriously?”

“I don’t mean to belittle your feelings but Ben isn’t your problem anymore.”

Poe wonders what Ben said to her about him. He has never asked, of course. Leia never treated him any differently. But now he wonders what she thinks.

“Ben was never my problem,” Poe says. “He was my friend, and he was my boyfriend, and I still care about him. I think I have the right to know what’s going on.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Leia says, but she is speaking with the cool precision of a politician and Poe isn’t fooled. “He’s understandably shaken up. Everything will settle down.”

“You don’t even know where he is!”

“Poe, please. Let me and my family take care of my son. You have enough to deal with.”

Poe slides his hand through his hair, tugging on the ends in frustration. “I just want him to know…” He sighs. “You’ll let me know when you speak to him? So I’ll know he’s okay?”

“Of course,” Leia says, and looks relieved that he is conceding.

Poe feels like he has given up but in his heart he knows he shouldn’t feel guilt for that; Ben gave up on him first.

-

Leia tells him that Ben comes back to the school, that he is hurt and distant but with Luke.

Ben still won’t take Poe’s calls.

-

Luke Skywalker’s Jedi school is burning.

The news comes in fragments. Poe feels like he’s dying.

Students are dead. Students are missing.

Poe’s father’s face is lined with worry, even in a hologram. He can’t tell Poe anything that Poe hasn’t already heard.

Karé holds Poe’s hand and squeezes too tightly.

He throws up in the refresher.

Finally it is Leia Organa who tells him that although Ben was present when the tragedy occurred, his body wasn’t among those found on the grounds. Her eyes are red and Poe knows she has been crying.

He doesn’t know what to say to her.

He sinks onto the floor of his tiny room on Hosnian Prime and cries, while Karé holds his hand too tightly.

-

He never finds out what happened to Ben.

-

Poe has been officially part of the Resistance for less than a day when he finds Leia Organa and asks her, “Why did you wait so long? To find me? You’ve been running the Resistance for years; you didn’t think I would want to be part of it?”

The Resistance is running on fumes, held together by Leia’s will and dogged stubbornness. He knows his own worth; he could have helped them. He would rather have learned of the First Order’s true threat straight from Leia’s mouth than through watching his friend explode in the vacuum of space.

“I felt you deserved to live your life without interference.”

It was about Ben, Poe realizes. It’s always about Ben.

“I could have made a difference.”

“You did, with the Navy.”

“My friend is dead because the Navy chose to ignore what you knew to be true. I’ve wasted years.”

Poe winces at his own choice of words.

_I’m sorry you wasted so many years on me._

He breathes in, then out.

If Leia noticed him falter, she doesn’t mention it. “Perhaps you weren’t ready before. You had a good life, Poe. It wouldn’t have been fair of me to push you out of it.”

_But you pushed Snap out of his just fine,_ Poe thinks, _and so many others._

It’s about Ben.

“Muran died. So now I’m ready?”

Leia crosses her arms over her chest. “You were free to find me yourself. But you didn’t.”

Poe acknowledges the point. He had had a good life, and it was easier to trust that the New Republic knew what it was doing. He had believed for too long.

And seeing Leia would have been harder than he could face.

It was always about Ben.

-

After Jakku and the _Finalizer,_ Poe is in an odd state of wired exhaustion. Physically, he knows his body is about at its limit, and mentally, well.

He’s been better.

Logically he knows he needs sleep but he is afraid of closing his eyes, and he would rather be busy. He would rather be fighting. He hopes Leia will have a target for him to shoot at.

He arrives on D’Qar and isn’t thinking about how familiar the pressing fingers in his mind had been, roughly probing when before… before…

He remembers Ben in his head. He remembers always trusting him, even if Ben didn’t always precisely ask. He had felt safe with Ben. He thinks Ben had felt safe with him.

But Kylo Ren had been cruel and harsh and horribly, painfully familiar.

Poe goes to Leia immediately. He pushes aside the well-meaning concern of his pilots; he can’t deal with that now. He needs Leia.

“I saw Ben, didn’t I?”

Leia doesn’t need to say anything; her face is all the answer Poe needs.

“Oh, kriff,” Poe says, half a moan, and lowers himself into the uncomfortable chair in front of Leia’s desk because he isn’t sure how long his legs will hold him.

He rubs his hands over his face and rakes them through his hair. “It was like he didn’t even know me. Like I was nothing. Like I had never been anything.”

Poe thinks maybe that hurts more than the torture. That to Ben – Kylo – that Poe can be so easily forgotten, so easily pushed aside, like all their years together didn’t matter.

“How long have you known?” Poe asks.

Leia looks old in a way that she doesn’t usually, tired and weary and weighed down. She looks like her heart is in pain and Poe is sorry to have prompted it.

“I always knew,” she says, and she isn’t looking at Poe. “Ben was gone. He killed those students. I knew we had failed him; he had always had so much darkness in him, and Snoke… When the first rumors came, Kylo Ren, I knew it was him. I could feel it in my heart.”

“You could have told me.”

Now she looks at him, and her eyes are sad but filled with care. “What would that have done? It would have changed nothing, and you… You remembered him like he was, my Ben, the boy you loved. I wanted to know that someone in this galaxy still did.”

Poe understands, but that doesn’t matter. “This hurts,” he says. “Finding out because…” He swallows. “It always would have hurt, but this is worse, and it was worse not knowing. All those years, not knowing what had happened, not knowing if he was alive or dead. You should have told me. It wasn’t fair.”

“I know,” Leia says, heavy and tired. “You might think I would have learned my lesson.”

“I still remember Ben, the boy I loved. I’m just… I’m not sure… Do you think there’s anything of him left?”

Leia’s careworn face still has a trace of hope in it. She still believes. “I have to. He is my son, and I have to… I have to believe that he can come back.”

Poe wants a piece of her surety so desperately. “He looked at me like I was nothing. He hurt me like I was nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Leia says, but she is clearly at a loss.

“I suppose he never did love me, after all,” Poe says, getting back to his feet. “That’s what he told me, on Bar’leth. I should have believed him.”

“If he told you that,” Leia says as he stands by the door, “he was lying to you. I don’t know why, but he lied to you.”

Poe doesn’t pause because he can’t… Stars, he can’t. “Tell me when you find Beebee,” he says.

“Only if you’re in the infirmary getting yourself seen to,” Leia says, and Poe goes through the door.

In retrospect, Poe knows that he did everything wrong. Ben wouldn’t have just fallen. It had been happening all along and Poe had failed to see it. Poe had been too busy with his own life and he had failed Ben.

He hates Ben a little for not trusting him, for not talking to him, when he had always told Ben he could come to him about anything. Hadn’t he been a good friend, a good partner, hadn’t he loved Ben so well? Why had Ben been so intent on pushing him away? Poe could have _helped_ him. They could have weathered it together.

For so many years Poe had slept right beside Ben, soothing his nightmares, and all along Ben had been fading deeper and deeper into the dark.

He hates himself more, for failing to see. He hates himself for not being what Ben needed. He hates himself for not being enough.

Poe hates that the Ben Organa-Solo he loved is gone, become this thing, a monster in a mask. Poe hates that there is nothing he can do about it.

Most of all Poe hates that he still loves him.


End file.
